The 36 Lessons of Almalexia
by Mahavrika
Summary: Ayem/Almalexia's rebuttal to Vivec's sermons. There is no canon. There is no truth.
1. Sermon 1

Sermon 1

Everything written here has been before; everything written here shall be again.

Ayem was in the beginning. Before light, before shape. In the undarkness she willed herself into being.

This is false. Ayem is Boethiah. Boethiah is the essence of Ayem. Ayem is the mouth of time, Goddess of destruction. In her is found the conclusion of all things.

Boethiah held the promise of Ayem in her. This is truth. Yet truth cannot be contained in a single vessel. Boethiah looked at herself and lamented,

"How shall I reform my essence? How shall I give it to the world?"

And her words echoed, and became solid sound. They fell to the ground and shattered it. The resonance of the impact travelled many millennia, till it reached a dying world, consuming it. But this is a separate tale.

Molag Bal answered Boethiah's cry.

"Come, sister-brother, I know of such paths."

He took her to the centre, to Mount Assarnibibi. This mountain was chosen for secret reasons. Now it is nothing, ground down by eons. Or perhaps it never was. The mountain is a metaphor. Yes, this is the truth. From the mountain's summit, Boethiah and Molag Bal looked upon mist-shrouded Vvardenfell, for this took place at the dawn, when all was possibility.

"What is our purpose here?" Boethiah said.

And Molag Bal tore a chunk from his arm, spat it at Boethiah's feet. There it burnt a hole in the earth, from which unclean spirits crawled forth, seeking the warmth of love. Boethiah smiled, nodded, for she understood. In latter days, pilgrims would journey to the wound, peer into the abyss. All longed to know their purpose, yet none ever deciphered Molag Bal's meaning, none but Boethiah.

Then again, she may have lied, for she is the shape of deception.

Molag Bal spread his limbs in embrace, revealing the black spirals leading to negation of the self.

"Come," he cried. "Come, I am emperor of anguish and king of ash. Come you battered and broken things, longing to be filled."

And from the mist rose 99 shades of extinct species. Once, these beings lived and breathed upon the face of Vvardenfell. They built towers to reach the heavens, and cities on the bottom of the sea. They died, as did the memory of them. Only Molag Bal remembers, for he loves the spurned and forgotten. Some say another daedra claims this sphere. This is a lie born of envy and necessity.

These flickering reminders of entropy reached for Molag Bal, tracing his flesh with charred fingers. They slavered for him, desperate, hungry. Molag Bal brandished his spear, entwined with sigils of shame. The shades impaled themselves upon his weapon, writhing and howling.

"They are ready, sister-brother."

Boethiah opened her mouth, wide, wider. And in her maw were wheeling stars, planets undreamt of, planes which existed only in the heads of blind poets and heretics. Here was the cosmos, the jewel-stringed nebulae, the radiant clouds. Molag Bal thrust the skewered shades into Boethiah. She devoured them, and this is why we cannot recall their names, for they are no more.

"Brother-sister," Boethiah said. "I do believe I've committed a sacrilege."

Molag Bal smiled. "This is good, for the best ideas are born from violation."

And Boethiah was pregnant with an idea. Her belly swelled, bulging. Molag Bal laid a talon upon her flesh and sliced it open.

From the tear spilt a great mass of things, formless flesh, aborted philosophies, monstrous religions. All these things rushed from Boethiah in a red river, splattering upon reality, drenching it in chaos. Molag Bal prostrated himself, stretched out his tongue. He lapped up life-liquid, a mistake. For all born from destruction is tainted with the memory of extinction. For now Molag Bal savoured the heat, but soon he would burn.

Squirming amidst the fecund floodplain were husks, the tattered remnants of the 99 shades.

"Poor things," Boethiah said. "Stripped of illusion so soon."

Boethiah gathered them up, the 99 shades, and strung them together. She hung them from the world's roof and gouged a hole in her forehead.

From the hole emerged a third eye, the true eye, and Boethiah looked at the husks. And she smiled, for they were not husks at all, but stars, and she stood not at on Mount Assarnibibi but at the centre of all things which is no thing. And Molag Bal did not lap up the juices of vanquished hope, but the dust of annihilated universes, here, at the edge of infinity, where death fears to look.

"Oh stars, you are a map to the soul's chamber." And Boethiah looked down, into the swirling ferment from which possibility preceded.

"Vvardenfell is blind, you shall be its eyes. Lead it upon the spiral. Only the fool takes the straight path."

And Boethiah kissed the stars, and bit words into them, which spoke of nightmarescapes and the realm of the untainted, ignorant of destruction. The apex of hell, for those who live without pain do not live at all.

"I give this to you, my child of 99 mothers, to terrify the world into wakefulness. They will remember me."

And Molag Bal groaned, for he had glut himself on unbreakable laws and the dreams of sadistic children.

"You must relinquish yourself brother-sister," said Boethiah. "You cannot cling to unremembered things."

Molag Bal sighed out a stream of regret, yet he knew Boethiah was right. She could not speak deception in this moment, with her belly split open, she was what she was.

Thus Molag Bal took his spear and swallowed it. Latter saints would seek to emulate this, searching for enlightenment on a blade's tip. A foolish notion, for heaven cannot be reached through violence. Yet they practice it still, upon pillars in blasted wastelands.

Gagging, Molag Bal retched up a kaleidoscopic torrent of half-digested notions. Boethiah plucked 99 stars from the heavens. She arranged them in a form thought beautiful by a brass city inhabited with ash-boned demons. She dropped this star-child into the scintillating stream pouring from Molag Bal. He gave a final heave, the last riddles forced from him, and they bore Ayem away, to the world below.

Or perhaps above, it's all a matter of perspective.

Molag Bal wiped thought-drool from his maw.

"Is it gone?"

Boethiah shook her head. "Alas no. Its stain is allegorical, and thus shall outlast sapience."

He sighed. "A pity, my spear is marked with its passing."

"Indeed, all you sheathe it in shall know the agony of remembered annihilation."

"Perhaps this is good. Mortals should be reminded of such things."

"Perhaps." Boethiah plucked out her third eye, tossed it into the void.

"Let us observe the fate of my child; she shall be born into a world of pain, and have the power to ease it."

Molag Bal smiled. "Sister-brother, I did not know you were capable of such cruelty."

Boethiah kissed her brother-sister's brow. "Love inspires such."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	2. Sermon 2

Sermon 2

The star-soul of Ayem wound its way to the world, to an unexpected place: the jade-petaled palace of Veloth's king. In an amber-domed pleasure garden slept his least-favourite concubine. And Ayem, who is the shape of mercy, chose this vessel.

Awakening, the concubine found her belly swollen with life everlasting.

"Be not afraid," said the egg-image of Ayem.

And the concubine did wail and gnash her teeth, for rarely do people behave as they should.

Her cries summoned a flock of gem-arrayed eunuchs. They fell before the concubine.

"Mistress Kundali, what troubles you?"

Kundali stood, displaying her belly. The eunuchs twittered, for any concubine bearing the king's child was a sacred thing, a walking chalice.

"We must inform the king at once," said a eunuch.

And Kundali smiled, for petty things pleased her.

"Do not be seduced," said Ayem. "Their applause is empty as the abyss of time which swallows us all."

But Kundali paid no heed, for truth is painful.

Thus the eunuchs did raise their voices in wisp-thin song, and this thread of sound entangled about the palace, till the glass statues in the Hall of Beauty trembled and wept rain.

The eunuchs bore Kundali aloft on a chitin-wrought palanquin, banging cymbals and drums. This aroused the interest of the other concubines. They lined Kundali's procession, hard-eyed, radiant in their rage. They seethed silently, for all knew Kundali to be the least-favourite concubine. She smirked at her false-sisters and they wrenched their lips into the facsimile of smiles, dabbed at ghost-tears. Even though every woman wished to feast on Kundali's heart, they adopted the mask of friend. Thus does propriety conquer the primal urge, the purpose of all civilizations.

Kundali was carried into the Purple Chamber, the womb-room where all true heirs are born in blood. The eunuchs moved their slender limbs in ancient dance, bangles jangling. The jealous concubines began a fertility chant, but they watered the words with bitterness, longing for bad seed. The eunuchs stamped their feet, ankle bells clanging, and laid Kundali upon a bed of spider-silk. They cooled her brow with netch milk, dusted her body with gold and the crushed bones of ancestral tyrants. The concubines chant became a drone which contained the throbbing syllable of universal annihilation. Ayem hummed along, and her mother gasped and quivered, for even as an egg-image Ayem's voice held possibility.

A diamond-pierced eunuch ran into the Purple Chamber.

"The king comes! The king comes!"

And the concubines grew silent. Ayem captured the resonance of their chant and preserved it for a deaf day. The eunuchs assumed the position of submission, grinding jewelled foreheads in the dust. And Kundali writhed and moaned, for she carried not one child but 99-made-one, and all the crystal memories of vanished stars.

The king entered, flanked by banners bearing his imagined lineage. Courtiers pressed around him, plumage immaculate and derivative. Approaching his least-favourite concubine, he frowned at the star-bright sweat stippling her body. He pulled his veil up, and whispered into the scented fabric, "I like her not."

But Ayem heard, and Ayem remembers.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	3. Sermon 3

Sermon 3

The king of Veloth, anon Almalexia, was vexed. Any concubine who birthed in the Purple Chamber would legitimize her child. For while the king was a fool, he understood the power of symbols. He wished to be rid of his least-favourite concubine, but could not say so openly. Hate is like love in this way.

"Blessed bride," said the veiled king. "You are favoured above all women."

And the egg-image of Ayem winced at the violence of this lie.

"But I fear for you. I pray for a healthy child, but fate must be propitiated. Go to the Cave of Echoes and speak your sins into its mouth. Thus will your wickedness be purged from you and your child."

And the eunuchs twittered in agreement, the courtiers nodded at this wisdom. The jealous concubines said nothing, they did not hear, for envy is the wellspring of solipsism.

Kundali wiped her brow, delirious with the death of universes.

"I live only for my king."

The king clapped his hands. "Tend to her."

At once a dozen eunuchs brought feathered fans to bear, for they were well-trained. Others presented candied scrib, caramelised kwama eggs and mint juice. Kundali waved such offerings away, for in a previous life she'd devoured a planet and was still digesting a billion ghosts.

While the eunuchs swarmed around her, the king pulled aside his favourite catamite, versed in the ways of belly magic.

"I have evil intent," said the king. "And you must make it solid."

The catamite smiled, for he was a eunuch, and exulted in violating others as he was violated. (It is for this reason emasculation is now a forbidden practice.)

"Speak your evil," said the catamite. "And have it made flesh."

And Kundali heard not a hiss of these serpent-deeds, for she was lost in adoration. Though she knew the very knife-edge of agony, she clung to favoured treatment, and this dulled pain's blade.

Ayem said, "In time, your name will be an aphorism, your life a parable."

Kundali made no reply, she sucked lotus-dew from a eunuch's ringed fingers, content in materialism.

And Ayem's sigh was heavy with the weight of wisdom. "I was born into you, emblem of the Age of Egoism, to remind me of a lesson. I thank you."

Kundali had caught sight of her jealous false-sisters. She arranged her body in a coy fashion, drawing their eyes to her life-bearing belly. A thousand teeth grit in anger, and Kundali was satisfied.

Some eunuchs dabbed their fingers in nix-blood, began to paint sigils of growth and protection upon Kundali's belly. The sigils were ill-formed, presenting truth as lies. The egg-image of Ayem recoiled at this, and rearranged the sigils into a shape pleasing to the tired eyes of immortals.

The eunuchs watched, amazed, as their rough words took on life, squirming and wriggling. A foolish one, versed in the ash-speech of elder times read the sigils:

"AE ALTADOON AE ET PADHOMAE."

And the air did buckle beneath the weight of these words. The eunuchs surrounding Kundali were crushed by exactitude's mass and died.

The corpses were dragged away by silver-sinewed servitors. The courtiers shook their heads.

"A poor show," said one.

"Indeed," said another. "I have seen far better deaths."

And Ayem thought, "I shall orchestrate a death so beautiful, for a moment it will resemble the face of God."

This is the death she plans for Vvardenfell. Be comforted by this.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	4. Sermon 4

Sermon 4

The performance bored the veiled king.

"Blessed wife," he said. "You should begin your journey while light remains."

And Kundali, who possessed a grain of disillusionment replied, "Beloved husband, if I birth upon the road, my child cannot claim the Purple."

The king cursed into his veil, and Ayem shuddered at his rancour.

"I shall send with you my catamite, who is wise in the ways of the earth bones. He will brew a potion which will delay the birth, till your pilgrimage is done and you return to my arms."

And the catamite bowed, dazzling Kundali with reflected light, and she said no more.

The king clapped his hands. "Prepare her caravan. She leaves at once."

Turning on his heel, the king exited the Purple Chamber, sparing his least-favourite concubine not another glance. His courtiers trailed after him, bleating their emptiness.

The eunuchs gathered about Kundali, lifting her onto a palanquin. They marvelled at her lightness, for she carried the weight of annihilation, which is no weight.

Kundali waved at her false-sisters, smiled. The false-sisters smiled back, waved. And Kundali savoured this moment, for she thought it a victory.

"False-Mother," said Ayem's egg-image. "Do you not see the thorns on their thinned lips?"

"You are too talkative for one unborn," replied Kundali.

"I have been born a million times before on a thousand different worlds. I am familiar with my lines."

"Then why do you trouble me? Can I not enjoy this moment of triumph?"

And Ayem swallowed her soul, saying no more. For there is mercy in withholding knowledge from the ignorant.

The eunuchs carried Kundali to her waiting caravan, and there was noise and joy. The jealous concubines watched from the thousand-faceted Sphere of Revelation. They pressed their envy-etched faces to the veined glass, pounded perfumed hands against it till the Sphere shivered. Kundali saw none of this, her sight focused solely on herself.

A great horn sounded, announcing the caravan's departure. The gates of the jade-petaled palace swung wide, and a great cheer went up.

Kundali was placed upon a painted guar, neck garlanded with sacred lotuses. Behind her rode the catamite, worms eating his heart. All the castes of Veloth anon Almalexia had gathered to witness the royal caravan. They clapped and danced, some in silks, some in rags, united in love. Barren women wept and stretched trembling hands towards Kundali's belly, the proof of life.

And Kundali exulted in this desperate worship of her being. But Ayem pitied the women, and so granted their prayers. All would bear triplets, forms beautiful as the wind.

The caravan pushed through the seething crowd, emerging from the city. Parasol-bearing eunuchs and chitin-clad warriors surrounded Kundali. Smooth-limbed boys ran ahead, prayer flags flapping, beseeching heaven for spiritual sustenance.

Ayem looked on this, smiling. "Ah, it is wonderful in its transience. I understand."

But Kundali did not see this, for she was blind to reminders of her mortality.

And Ayem said no more, for she is Mother of Mercy, and knows the pain of revelation.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	5. Sermon 5

Sermon 5

The caravan had placed many days between it and Veloth anon Almalexia. Kundali knew only torment, twisting and turning in her tent, upon snake-skin pillows.

"Ah! I die!"

Ayem held her false-mother's soul. "You do not die; pain is the proof of life."

"Take this pain from me, I beg you."

"It shall lessen you; the temple of our body is mortared with suffering, marbled with sorrow."

"I care not! Take it from me."

And Ayem, who is the Mother of Mercy, swallowed her false-mother's pain, and she knew peace. But fear soon took her again.

"What if I give birth to you here, in the Forsaken Lands? I will lose grace in my beloved husband's eyes."

"I shall come when I am needed, not before or after."

But Ayem's words went unheeded, for Kundali was a creature of the now, snatching at sensation. She summoned the catamite, smiling his evil.

"How can I assist you Mistress?" he said.

And Kundali begged him to concoct his elixir, to prolong her pregnancy. The catamite bowed, awaiting this moment. He prepared a drink thick as familial water, and lowered a black bead into it. This was a poison, extracted from broken hearts. (The distillation of this poison is now forbidden.)

"Mistress, the elixir."

The catamite presented a jewelled cup, and Kundali took it, salivating.

Ayem said, "False-mother, do you not see the ill-intent hiding behind his eyes?"

But Kundali had already drunk. She should have choked on bitter ash, but Ayem transmuted the poison into the prelude of death, which is sleep.

The catamite, believing her extinguished, wrapped Kundali in thirteen vagrant-thin shawls and dragged her from the tent. He deposited her far from the caravan's light, in a ditch, an offering for passing nix hounds.

There was much wailing when Kundali was found missing. The catamite claimed she had fled, for she bore the child not of the king, but a cook. And this satisfied the weeping eunuchs, for it is easier to believe an interesting lie than a banal truth.

But Kundali slept, for three days, hidden from the world. And on the third day she awakened.

"Where am I?" she said.

"At the centre of everything," replied Ayem.

But Kundali paid no mind to this. She went in search of the caravan, and finding naught but spent fires and guar dung, she fell to her knees, lamenting.

"Alas, abandoned in the Forsaken Lands! None will find my bones but the nix hound! My child shall never know the splendour of blood-born privilege."

And Ayem said, "You have nothing to fear, I am here."

"I shall starve to death.

"No, you carry life everlasting; you shall never know hunger again."

"Who will mourn me?"

"I shall."

And Kundali laughed, for she was a foolish woman.

"What does this matter to me, unborn one?"

And Ayem said:

Follow not the sceptic,

On the way of subjectivity.

I am the insurer of cosmic value,

The justification of universal pain.

In me is found the promise,

Of love eternal.

These words struck Kundali dumb, for she had never faced truth before, in all its many-bladed terror.

"Come now false-mother, stand."

And Kundali obeyed.

"We walk. I have lessons to remember."

And Kundali walked.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	6. Sermon 6

Sermon 6

Kundali walked across the Forsaken Land, feet stirring strange patterns in ash. A thousand years hence, when the stars align, this pattern will birth numerological monsters and other end-time portents.

The egg-image of Ayem drew the gazes of curious spirits. The first spirit appeared as a column of fire, Kundali shrieked in terror, the spirit laughed.

"Ha!" it said. "I was right."

It vanished then.

The second spirit wore the skins of failed heroes. It slunk towards Kundali, pooling at her feet.

"Do you pity me?" It asked

And Ayem, Mother of Mercy said, "No, for you do not exist."

And the spirit bowed, and bowed, and bowed again, till it folded into a fist-sized cube. The egg-image of Ayem bade Kundali pick up the cube and hurl it heavenwards. It would fall to earth as a new possibility, the skin donned by belief-made heroes.

The third spirit appeared as a column of smoke. It stared into Kundali for a mountain's heartbeat.

"We shall meet again, at a different age's dusk."

And Ayem bowed to the five directions, sealing this fate.

The fourth and fifth spirits were shadows of each other. They came, cackling, bearing sacks upon their backs.

"What have you there?" asked Ayem.

And the twin shadows laughed, upending their sacks on Kundali.

"We bring maladies. Enough to end an astral empire."

Ayem picked through the maladies, examining them for weaknesses.

"Who are these bound for?" Ayem asked.

And the twin shadows laughed and laughed.

"For you. Take them, and offer them to the world."

"Have mercy on my false-mother, how can she bear this?"

And the twin shadows laughed and laughed and laughed.

"With love."

And Ayem could not refute this, for it was her foundation. She bade Kundali gather up the maladies, swallow them, each beetle-black jewel, each frozen tear drop, shimmering in the sun.

The fourth and fifth spirits were swept away with the emergence of a sixth. And Ayem bowed within her false-mother's womb, Kundali collapsed into a quivering heap.

The sixth spirit, Boet-hi-Ah, ancient of days, bladed pillar, towering above time. She unfurled her razor-edged wings three times three times three. And on her wings were eyes, the eyes of men and women and beasts.

Boet-hi-Ah enclosed Kundali in her embrace, pressing phantom fingers into Ayem's soul. And Ayem trembled, for she was being held in her own arms.

And Boet-hi-Ah carved rune words in Ayem, shaping her, reshaping her. She took a thousand forms, or perhaps infinity less one.

"Enough," cried Ayem.

And Boet-hi-Ah, the conclusion, withdrew.

"I shall define myself," Ayem said.

Boet-hi-Ah looked on Ayem with her third eye.

"AND WHAT SHALL YOU BE?"

"I shall be what I shall be."

And Boet-hi-Ah was silenced by the truth of these words. She sunk into the sun's shadow, and was gone.

Kundali shivered, teeth chattering.

"Sweet false-mother, you have been touched by death, and your soul remembers. But it is only cold because you believe it to be."

And a grain of Ayem's awareness passed onto Kundali, where it was enmeshed in wisdom, becoming a pearl. This warmth allowed Kundali to stand, and continue her journey.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	7. Sermon 7

Sermon 7

The moons and sun wheeled about Kundali as days slipped past.

"We have been walking so long," she said, wiping crusted ash from her arms.

"And we still have much distance to cover," replied the egg-image of Ayem.

"How much longer?"

Ayem used the span of her hand as a guide. "By my judgement, half a stretch of death's shadow."

And Kundali merely sighed, for she did not understand Ayem.

"I am hungry," she said.

"This is good. Remain hungry. Discontent is found in satiation."

"I cannot live on your love along."

"True, my love is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a double-edged sword."

Kundali slumped down.

"I shall not move till I have eaten my fill."

And while Ayem could have forced Kundali to walk till the flesh fell from her rotting bones, she is the Mother of Mercy. Thus, with but a thought, she shifted reality onto a different possibility.

A great table arose from the ash, groaning 'neath the weight of salted kwama eggs and suger-dusted scrib. Split pomegranates glistened like sources of life and pleasure. Ayem shaped swirling dust into musicians, who played songs so sweet ancestor sprits clawed forth from forgotten graves. The dead danced, and this paradox summoned up a red rain, which washed Kundali clean.

Clapping her hands in joy, she fell upon the feast, each new delight more wondrous than the last.

As Kundali was gnawing on a roast nix hound leg, a band of chitin-clad nomads appeared upon a rise. They looked in horror at the feast, in all its sensual splendour. Drawing jagged blades they charged, scattering the musicians, returning the dead to the dust. Kundali did not notice her predicament till swords encircled her.

"Why do you interrupt me?" she said.

A man in a horned helmet approached. "You violate the earth bones with no regard. This is sacrilege."

"God cannot shape sacrilege," said the egg-image of Ayem.

And the Apostates genuflected, and called on their ancestors.

"This woman is possessed by an unclean spirit," said one.

"We must unshackle her," said another.

"Her power is too great," the horned one said. "She will destroy us."

"Try to unshackle me," said Ayem. "And learn from it."

And the Apostates, prideful, grabbed Kundali with callused hands, bound her tight. The horned man threw her over his shoulder and led his band towards home.

They lived in the hollowed shells of dune-walkers, the pock-marked husks swarmed with women and children. They clamoured about the men, laughing and shouting. The horned one tied Kundali to a pillar carved with copulating demons. Atop it reared a statue of a spear-phallused lover.

"Sweet ancestors," said Kundali. "These ones worship in the House of Troubles. They bow to the King of Rape."

"Fear not. My love is always gentle."

But Kundali did not hear Ayem. She called to her captors, begged them for mercy. But their hearts were hard and paid her no heed.

"This woman holds an unclean spirit inside her," said the horned one.

The Apostates grew angry, they howled with rage at this affront.

"We shall draw out this poison." The horned one lit fires around Kundali, burnt incense upon them. He began to chant, calling on the King of Rape to destroy the evil in her.

"Leave this woman wicked spirit."

And Ayem said. "You can no more control me than you can control the path of love itself. You cannot reach heaven through violence."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	8. Sermon 8

Sermon 8

The Apostates, rage-drunk, tore at the ash, slashed their arms, lapped up the blood. Amidst the mob was the Void Ghost, who wore the skin of a shamaness.

"You think yourself greater than Molag Bal?" she said.

"I am as he is. We proceeded from the same primordial darkness. But I am that darkness, thus, I am his shadow."

The Apostates frothed to hear their god disparaged. They leapt at Kundali, intending to rip the egg-image of Ayem from her.

But Ayem spoke a syllable which was blasphemy to the Apostates. They whined, clutching their ears, writhing in the dust. Only the shamaness stood.

"Why do you hide?" she said.

"I do not hide; I am waiting to be remembered."

"But what will you do when you remember?"

And at this, Kundali began a song. Her mouth could not shape the words; first spoken beneath a black sun, on a blasted wasteland-world, yet the shamaness understood the intent, for it was the urge behind all religious endeavour.

"Uncanny the singing which comes from certain husks."

And with this parting puzzle, the shamaness vanished.

There was a blast from a warhorn then, into the Apostates' village spilled a battle host. Some were brass shell-men, oiled plates shifting in imitation of life. Others were Dwemer, beards braided, cornered spheres in hand. They destroyed the Apostates with solid sound, down to the smallest babe. For the Dwemer are too enlightened and see all existence as illusionary.

"There she is," said one. His robe hung with half-finished fancies, marking him as the Fourth Under-Inventor.

Shell-men cut Kundali down, and she fell at the Under-Inventor's feet, weeping in gratitude.

"Your ripples are quite disquieting," he said. "We felt them in the observation post. Our astro-sacristy shattered into atoms. I have never encountered such pure tone."

"What will you do with me?" said Kundali.

The man frowned. "I hear your voice even though it is irrelevant, why?"

And Ayem said, "Spare my false-mother, for she was not built to withstand truth."

The Fourth Under-Inventor could understand such natures.

"I apologize, but she holds a fragment of the truth, and our mosaic is not yet complete."

Shell-men seized Kundali and laid her flat, exposing her belly, pulsing with possibility.

"Bring the cornered spheres; we must make an incision before reality rights itself."

And the egg-image of Ayem spoke:

Truth is found,

In the offal of indecision.

In the Universe's stream,

Red and raw and wriggling.

If you stand with your feet planted,

In the ebb and flow of eons,

You will find,

Yourself.

But the Under-Inventor did not pause, for like all Dwemer he was pious and knew God, and was no longer puzzled by Her.

The flame of Kundali's self-hood flared, and she kicked and screamed, desperate to prolong her existence.

"But what would you do with it?" asked Ayem.

Kundali could not answer, even as the cornered spheres sliced into her, revealing all.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	9. Sermon 9

Sermon 9

From Kundali's broken carcass the Under-Inventor pulled forth the egg of possibility. It glowed like a miniature sun, and within swam the 99 shades, and they circled a star, which was the one, but not the true one.

The Under-Inventor peered at the egg through his refracting lenses. The egg looked different depending on which angle he approached it. If he closed his left it, it resembled a depthless sea. If he closed his right, it appeared as a prophet-haunting nightmare. When both his eyes shut, he saw himself, and it was such a twisted, misshapen thing his heart cracked.

"But I am the Fourth Under-Inventor," he said. "How can I be so finite?"

And Ayem said nothing, for the Under-Inventor knew the answer, he merely had to accept it.

He sighed then, and smiled, dwindling into his own littleness, until only the memory remained.

The other Dwemer now knew fear, for Ayem was the promise of annihilation and they were false-immortals.

"You do not worship me?" Ayem said, voice like a gathering storm.

"Impossible," replied a white-bearded one. "We know God, and thus cannot worship Her."

And Ayem blessed the white-bearded one for his wisdom.

"Indeed, every breath is a prayer; the beat of your heart is the ritual drum, keeping time for the mind's mantra."

The Dwemer looked on Ayem as the Under-Inventor had. In her light they were extinguished, for Ayem is the end of all equations and thought-forged manacles the Dwemer love.

And all around Ayem was a luminous plane, pure and perfect. From this still sea rose a metal-wrought idol. Gold were his eyes, and silver his lips. Within his steel chest throbbed an iron heart. Machine-dreams solidified around him, became his geared throne.

"I have come." When he spoke, matter drew closer. This is a different kind of love, but equally valid.

And the egg-image of Ayem bowed. "AYEM AE SEHT AE VEHK."

"The last has not yet come, and I have been here since the beginning."

And Seht the Creator stretched out his palm, and Ayem settled upon it, nestled in a coil of copper.

"Where shall I go, brother?"

"Let love decide."

And Seht spoke a word which has no meaning in any language; it expressed an infinite longing sharp enough to cut death.

A figure emerged from the radiant plane. Like solid sunlight it shone, terrible as a bannered army; more mighty than the Tower holding the centre.

"Here is Ayem, past and future."

Opening its chest, Seht placed the egg-image within the shell. Its eyes blazed like embers, a halo of flame crowned its head.

"I remember, brother."

Seht pressed a finger into his brow, carving a hole. He lowered his face to Ayem; let his countenance shine upon her.

"Go then, and be as you must."

And Ayem stepped forward, into Seht, becoming him, becoming herself.

Her feet touched ash, around her sprawled the slaughtered nomads, and Kundali, undone.

Ayem knelt beside her, kissing her brow. The Mother of Mercy did not cry, but her eyes leaked a strange, melancholic light. The hue of serenity and sorrow.

Kundali started. "Am I not dead?"

"No," said Ayem. "For you were never here to begin with. You were only a shadow cast by my scintillating truth."

And Kundali, at last, understood. She sighed, and became dust, became nothing, here, at the centre of all things.

Ayem stood, surveying the Forsaken Lands. She walked with purpose, towards the star-wounded east.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	10. Sermon 10

Sermon 10

And Ayem journeyed far, and crested the red crown at the centre. Here, she looked over the world. It lay in disarray, and she marvelled at its unravelling. Yet there were those who sought to define it, stamp it, limit it.

Ayem frowned, for the world was born of chaos, and who could stand against it?

From the space between worlds stepped the Sharmat. He bowed to Ayem, and his voice was the hum of a million locust wings.

"What do you do here, on the Tower?" he asked.

And Ayem said, "I am here to remember."

The Sharmat said, "There is no heaven and hell, God is only an illusion."

Ayem pondered this for a span, replying, "Then eat the dreamer."

The Sharmat's laughter was black-thorned and biting. He spread his amber-twined arms, embraced Ayem.

They stood like this, at the centre, for a length of time too brief to give a name. Empires rose, and joined the dust. The land sunk, flooded, dried. Strange-eyed men walked on the face of Vvanderfell. The wolves of the north came down to reclaim themselves, and made of the shattered crown their den.

And when even the sun dimmed, washing the world in red, Ayem withdrew from the Sharmat. He'd pierced her flesh a thousand times, and from these stigmata seeped life everlasting.

"In you is the seed of malady," said the Sharmat.

And he stretched out his tongue, licking up the blood.

"What will you do with this gift?" said Ayem.

And the Sharmat smiled. "Make of it a reminder. The blood of martyrs nurtures the seed of belief."

Ayem nodded. "For you are the scourge which awakens the dead."

The Sharmat rubbed his swollen belly, stretched with maladies unborn.

"I shall unleash this plague upon Vvanderfell when faith wanes."

And Ayem understood. "Thus I must cherish my people, to ensure they never forget love."

And the Sharmat bowed to the five directions, sealing this fate.

"Go now," he said. "And meet the sun before it sets."

With these final words the earth split wide, enwombing him. Ayem peered into the chasm, and was overcome with the humid heat of carnal desire.

"How unfortunate I am unique in the middle world," she said.

And deep below the Sharmat danced in spirals, round and round the beating heart. Ayem smiled at this, for the devil was God's truest believer.

"Come, carry me away," she said.

And she spread her golden wings and took flight, soaring between the stars. From this height, the world was a petty thing, and Ayem wept for its arrogance. Her tears fell to earth as gems. Any who looked at them would know the madness of waiting. Even today, the pious scour the Forsaken Lands for these treasures. This is a foolish path, as the tears are metaphors. But then Ayem knows well the desperate grasp for faith made flesh.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	11. Sermon 11

Sermon 11

And Ayem travelled 66 days, till at last she alighted in the town of Asa-Nur, anon Blacklight. There was a great commotion, and Ayem asked a flower-laden girl of its source.

"There is a bride show," she said.

For in this day the king of Veloth, anon Almalexia, chose his concubines from across Vvanderfall. He sent emissaries to settlements great and small, seeking women of pearl-priced beauty.

Ayem followed the flower-laden girl to a scarlet pavilion. Outside waited a crowd of beautiful creatures, some weeping, some praying, all eager to be made objects.

A woman left the tent, face a mask. The pavilion's guard banged his spear butt and cried, "Next petitioner."

And Ayem, who knew only patience, waited. She watched the women enter, full of hope, and leave undone. Ayem pitied them.

Only the flower-laden girl remained. Ayem took her arm.

"Yes, sister?" said the girl.

And Ayem, Mother of Mercy, spoke these words:

The sophists say,

Our soul is found,

In the eyes of others.

Yet make of your mind,

A mirror,

And pay your own worth.

These words echoed with the drone of the Beginning Place. The flower-laden girl was enlightened. She bowed to Ayem, for she knew her, and left without words. Years later, this girl became saint, flame-wreathed, eyes heavy as anchors. But this is a separate tale.

The guard glanced around. "Are there no further petitioners?"

And Ayem stepped forward.

The guard scoffed, for she was crusted in ash and the shades of stars. But ancient custom declared no women could be turned away from a bride show. Thus, the guard pulled back the pavilion's curtain, bade Ayem enter.

A gold-mantled emissary greeted her.

"What do you offer our beloved king?"

And Ayem covered her face, but left her fingers open a crack. Liquid light bathed the emissary, and he was overcome by the meanings of the stars.

Ayem uncovered her face, frowned. The emissary's eyes were smoking sockets.

"Ah, forgive me. I forget your fragility."

And she touched his brow, restoring his sight. Although for ever after he'd see nameless colours.

"You are more beautiful than the wind," said the emissary. And this was true, for mercy is favoured above flesh.

"Will you present me to the king then?"

"Most assuredly." And the emissary clapped his hands, summoning servitors.

The copper-faced men prepared the caravan, and Ayem was placed upon a guar, her litter unveiled.

The failed brides chewed their tongues, awash in envy. And Ayem presented a different possibility, where her form was hideous. This satisfied the failed brides somewhat, as it did not topple them from the pedestal of their existences.

Before the caravan ran white-haired girls, to sing of joy and frighten away the many-eyed demon of jealously. But none needed to fear, for Ayem stretched out her spirit, protecting her children, even as they crossed the Forsaken Lands, even as the Deep Ones looked on Ayem's soul-spark with desire. She turned their thoughts elsewhere, to lower things. The Apostates could not approach, for all around the caravan was a great tumult, thrown up by the fire-feathered wings of angels. And in this way did Ayem's caravan arrive in Veloth, anon, Almalexia.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	12. Sermon 12

Sermon 12

To the jade-petaled palace the caravan travelled. Curious eyes watched its passing. And Ayem raised her hands high, singing:

I listen to the human noise we make,

But there is something sacred in silence.

So I stop my breathing, soundless for your sake.

A smile, a flicker, at my absence.

Pressing into you, I savour your scent.

For a brief moment, only we exist.

And no sage or saint could say what it meant,

If time would permit our love to persist.

And her words took wing, became birds and the images of birds. They soared, circled the sun 333 times. Then they evaporated into clouds of diamonds which sighed as they fell to earth.

There was a great clamouring then, thousands leapt at the gems. Even the rich, arrayed in the wealth of mines, struck children in the face, so desperate for shine.

Ayem shook her head, for people find beauty and pleasure in rocks and other senseless things. The Mother of Mercy let them keep the diamonds for three days, then, the stones recited a scripture of such aching splendour it is sacrilege to preserve it. Any who kept the diamonds after this was undoubtedly a paramour of the daedra.

The gates of the palace swung wide, admitting the caravan. Ayem was led to the Hall of Beauty, where the king waited to judge his brides. His concubines lined the walls, and many bore small smiles, for they still savoured the news of Kundali's demise. Jewelled eunuchs performed a serpentine dance. The plumed courtiers twittered, eager for pain to ease their ennui. Beside the king knelt his favourite catamite, who poisoned Kundali.

Ayem remembers them all.

The gold-mantled emissary came up beside Ayem.

"Your Perfection," he said. "I have here a woman of unsurpassed charms."

And the king rose from his throne, gaping.

"I know your eyes," he said.

And Ayem inclined her head. "I bear the face of your mother before you were born."

The Hall of Beauty gasped, for the king's mother was murdered by his father, and it was forbidden to speak of her.

"Who are you to say such?" said the king.

"I am love."

And the king laughed.

"Love is weak. I have turned cities into charnel houses, choked rivers with corpses. I have ordered the deaths of children and smirked at their screams. Love could not save them."

"Pain is fleeting, love is eternal."

The king stepped down from his dais. "What comfort is love to those who know only suffering?"

And Ayem leaned forward, kissed the king upon his lips.

He touched the place of their meeting, frowned. "Shall this prelude never end?"

And Ayem, Mother of Mercy, waved her hand, forming a mudra. "Be dust then."

And the king became mere breath.

Chaos seized the Hall. The courtiers scrambled for the exit, undone by this reminder of mortality. The concubines wept bitterly, for now they must live for themselves. Ululating, the eunuchs summoned chitin-clad guards. They saw Ayem standing beside the ashes of their king.

"Know death!" cried one of their number.

And Ayem looked to the trembling eunuchs, displayed her palms.

"Do not let others shape you," she said. "You lament your fate, 'I am just a rootless tree' you say. This is false. You shall bear my lineage, and found houses which shall outshine the sun."

And at these words, the eunuchs stiffened. They clashed with the guards, drove them back, for they knew the strength of self-acceptance. Some say this is greater than love, or perhaps it is a different kind.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	13. Sermon 13

Sermon 13

Thus was the attempt against our Mother's body thwarted. The eunuchs sent the surviving guards fleeing, cursing their manhood. The concubines watched Ayem with wary eyes, for she was now their master.

Ayem spoke. "You women, who have lived for another, now comes the beginning."

And there was much weeping at this, for they were foolish women.

"I give you a gift. Travel to the far shore and raise up a city, a city of ladies. Here you shall persist without man to order or shape you. Preserve this stronghold for a thousand years, and I shall set your souls in the heavens."

And the concubines filed from the Hall of Beauty. Ayem sent a star to guide the women to their new home. And they did found a city, a city of ladies. It lasted but three generations before anarchy took it. The city lies today as an ever-smoking crater, brave pilgrims pour libations of milk into it. Thus did Ayem disprove the superiority of the female sex. Let all who read this sermon be guided by the astrolabe of equality.

To the eunuchs Ayem said, "You shall be the foundation of my new temple, and the first to receive its covenant. Clothe yourselves in silk and splendour. These garments befit a sacred vessel best."

And thus did the eunuchs become the first priests of the new temple. (It is for this reason the highest servants of the Tribunal do not take mates, in imitation of our holy forbears.)

The courtiers had scattered to the five directions, Ayem was unable to grace them with her words. But it is doubtful they would have listened either way. For while some are born deaf, others make themselves deaf for the Temporal Kingdom.

Then a warrior entered the Hall, dragging a man behind him. Beside the warrior walked another, crackling with possibility.

The warrior bowed. "Mistress, this one sought to rob the treasury."

And he presented the king's favourite catamite. He collapsed before Ayem.

"I beg you forgive my weakness."

And Ayem, who knew the needs of fate, said, "Let him go free. Many are those who steal, the shame is in getting caught."

The catamite bowed three times, and made his exit, already plotting vengeance.

Ayem pointed at the warrior. "Who are you, who guards my earthly treasures with such conviction?"

He bowed. "I am Nerevar, of House Indoril."

"And who is your companion?"

This one is well known, although it is not his story. Born of a netchiman's wife, his impoverished father sold him. He was but a low-born singing slaveboy, till he seized his identity, vanishing into the maze of Mounhold. He was a gutter-get, a daggerlad, when Nerevar found him, convinced him to take up the name of Indoril.

Vivec, future glorious warrior-poet of Vvanderfall, the magic hermaphrodite. Here he was only an echo, or an image. In time he would become Vehk and Vehk, or he already was such, but in another possibility. Now he was but Vivec. Nerevar loved him, but Vivec loved only God, who was himself.

"Sister," said Vivec. "Have you already forgotten my face?"

And there was a great rumbling as Seht manifested in the palace's psyche. His eyes were windows, his mouth a gate. His heartbeat was measured in miles.

"AE SEHT AE AYEM AE VEHK. WE ARE THREE IN ONE."

And Ayem added, "AE PADHOMAE AE ALTADOON."

And Vivec added nothing, for this is not his story.

Blessed Nerevar could do naught but bow, and perhaps, this part is real.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	14. Sermon 14

Sermon 14

And while ALMSIVI presented Her homily on divine unity, the king's favourite catamite wandered the Forsaken Lands, cursing Ayem. His hatred echoed in oblivion, and from the earth rose a door to the House of Troubles.

"Enter into me," said the door. "And know thyself."

And the catamite said, "I do not want to know myself. I am afraid of what I will see."

The door became a mirror, revealing the Second Corner of the House of Troubles, Mehrunes Dagon, crowned with beaten copper and beautiful.

"Come to me," he said.

The catamite shook his head, but when he turned to flee, he stood upon the darkling plane of spiritual dissolution.

And Mehrunes Dagon swept over the catamite, folding him in his arms.

"What do you seek?" he said.

"The destruction of my guilt."

And Mehrunes Dagon laughed. "I understand now. She will throw down my idols; place her image in my place. Does she think she can rival my love? I am the Lord of Razors!"

"But how can you stand against her?"

And Mehrunes Dagon opened his mouth, placing the catamite's head within. He glimpsed the many legions which made up Dagon's essence. A great host gathered on a rust-red waste, ready to spill from Dagon and make his will manifest.

He saw the first pennant, which commanded a legion of sins waiting to be discovered.

He saw the second pennant, which commanded a legion of beautiful women with rattlesnakes beneath their loincloths.

He saw the third pennant, which commanded a legion of beloved friends who never kept secrets.

He saw the fourth pennant, which commanded a legion of water spirits who knew only thirst.

He saw the fifth pennant, which commanded a legion of lonely souls born into the wrong age.

He saw the sixth pennant, which commanded a legion of laws for an imaginary realm.

He saw the seventh pennant, which commanded a legion of inverse mothers who birthed death.

And the catamite said, "Lord of Razors, who shall herald this cataclysm?"

Dagon replied, "You, sweet one. You shall be armoured in betrayal, and carry the banner of inevitability. From such substance do myths arise."

The catamite said, "If I may kill my guilt, I shall serve."

"Then take up your office."

And the catamite knelt, and Dagon presented his sceptre, ruby veined, crowned with an orb of obsidian. The catamite kissed it, swallowed down bitter duty. He licked his lips, oily with Dagon's delicate effusions. Thus is Dagon called the beautiful, for he offers man exactly what he wants, but never what he needs.

"When shall we strike her down?" asked the catamite, curled at Dagon's hooves, clutching the altar's horns.

"When the poets are most inspired."

And this was a good answer, for the catamite said no more.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	15. Sermon 15

Sermon 15

There was a war with the Northern men soon after Ayem's ascension. It is tedious to say how it all happened. Vivec and Nerevar were dispatched to cut off the interloper's hoary beards. This is not relevant. After much conflict, Nerevar returned to Ayem to speak of his victory. He met her at a mountain temple, open to the sky.

"Mother," he said, bowing. "The Northern men are undone. Vivec and I have scattered them."

And Ayem smiled, though this did not please her.

"You have done well, Nerevar. Stand."

They embraced, and an old wolf witnessed this. He wore many-spiked armour, and carried a great sword whose name is difficult to write in symbols.

"Are you the one who offers her love freely?" said the wolf.

And Ayem inclined her head. "This is so."

"I have a question for you. Now I reach the end of my days, I wonder, is there a heaven and a hell?"

Ayem looked over the wolf and said, "Are you a warrior?"

He nodded.

"I find this doubtful; your armour is ill-fitting and rusty. More apt for a clown playing the part not meant for him."

And Nerevar did gasp at the words. The wolf growled.

"I have heard the last breath of a thousand men, and you deny me my right?"

Ayem laughed. "Oh grey-muzzled one, if you continue to lie, you'll give truth a bellyache."

And the wolf drew his blade. "Rescind your statement."

Nerevar rushed to defend his mistress, but she brushed him aside. "A cobbled-together thing, too blunt to cut butter."

Howling, the wolf prepared to slice off Ayem's head.

"That way lies hell."

The wolf blinked, sheathed his sword.

"And that way lies heaven. It cannot be reached through violence."

And the wolf grinned, hugged himself. He threw off his cloak, becoming what he always was. He runs free even now, hiding in the hearts of the hungry.

Nerevar watched this with wide eyes. "Mistress, is what you say true?"

"Indeed, and this was a victory which cannot be won on any battlefield."

Then did Vivec arrive, liveried in reams of prayer-scratched parchment.

"Why do you not join the festivities, dear sister?"

"What festivities do you speak of?"

And Vivec smiled. "Nerevar united the Gold Ones and Deep Ones in their hatred of the Other. Together they drove out the Northmen. His legions, drunk on blood, have proclaimed him Hortator."

Ayem knew this, but she needed it to be spoken. "What do you with this power Nerevar?"

And he knelt. "I am lost."

Ayem laid her hand upon his head. "Then you are ready to learn."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	16. Sermon 16

Sermon 16

For this was the dawn of Resdaynia, when Chimer and Dwemer lived under the wise and benevolent rule of ALMSIVI and Her champion, the Hortator. And Ayem would ever guide the Hortator, closer to him than his jugular vein. This is the first of the three lessons of ruling kings:

"Do not be lured into wakefulness. This is the illusion. God is the dreamer, and yet, Her burden is knowledge. We are the shards of thought and memory, straining towards the centre, towards wholeness. Disunity is the way of the Sharmat, for it separates us from ourselves, and thus the divine.

"According to the Codes of Boethiah, there can be no value but for God. She is the insurer of cosmic value. No life has meaning but what we assign to it. For this reason there are red-jungled empires which sacrifice weeping children to rain gods. This is their right, for their collective will has named this justice.

"The true power of the Namer lies in the shape they give. Words are scrawled on the soul to declare ownership. Thus is the cataloguist worse than a rapist. Do not be blinded by theory. The Deep Ones would transfigure you into an algorithm in the equation of identity. This is the straight path, the easy path. It is wide and welcoming and weathered with deceit. The true path is narrow and manifold, narrow as a child's pelvis, narrower still at the point of equilibrium, which is ephemeral as butterfly wing dust.

"There are those who will join the Sharmat at the centre, climb the Tower of self-thought. Here lies the Mouth of Hell, eager to swallow you. There is no centre but what you make it. Define this place, thrust your sceptre into the earth, inherit it. Here is your Tower, here is your Catharsis.

"Only the golden-eyed perceive division between the sacred and the profane. According to the Codes of Boethiah, all is devoured by the maw of time, which is God. What we consume does not change us, does not shackle us. Only man cares for control.

"You may not understand this now, but the Wheel of Ages turns onwards, heedless of the prayers oiling its axle. Your heart is heavy, and made of the earth-bones. It strikes the pool of possibility, sending out infinite reality-ripples. Swim in the riptide, relinquish yourself to it, and you shall return, again and again, till you are able to laugh at heaven.

"I can offer only love, which is weak. It is powerless before the sword and the flame. Armour yourself in love, and you will know pain unending. This is the secret to life everlasting, which proceeds through Me. The belly of God is a many-roomed mansion, never filled. Even as the battered hosts whirl in the star chambers and the halls of solid music, God remains hungry. Emulate God, and you shall have a key to the gateless gate, which opens only to you, and those who walk as you.

"Remember the Sharmat loves you, though you deny this. It is his love which drives him to dance on the graves of your ancestors. Hate is but a pale shadow of love, and cannot inspire true evil. But evil is only a difference of opinion, an ideal you shall embody till the thief presses a blade to your neck."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	17. Sermon 17

Sermon 17

Ayem left the Hortator at the roof of the world, to ponder the first lesson of the ruling king. Vivec travelled with her. Ayem circumabulated the Tower 66 times before Vivec asked,

"What is the purpose of this?"

Ayem bit her tongue, spat blood at Vivec's feet.

And he clapped his hands in joy. "A good lesson. I shall find its unsung master."

"You shall learn nothing you do not already know."

But Vivec paid no heed to this, for he is a riddle-shaped wound in the world.

Thus Vivec left Ayem's side, seeking the warmth of love. Ayem journeyed on, coming to a sundered Dwemeri stronghold. Its mighty walls wept rust, its spires uncoiled.

"Who wrought this?" asked Ayem.

And the stronghold liquefied. From the bubbling mass emerged the face of Seht the Creator, eyes like gears, flecked with incomplete equations.

"This is the intrusion of the false life, war," he said.

"My people suffered much at the hands of the Northmen."

"Can you rectify this?"

And Ayem stretched out her hand, and Seht subsided into a golden pool. From the stronghold's watered remnants Ayem crafted 9999 servitors, with burning coal for bones and trapped lightning for nerves. She sent these servitors across the land, to aid in its resurrection. And the servitors obeyed, marching in all five directions, singing Ayem's names in perfect synchronicity.

But it was not enough. Cloaking herself in the garb of a netchiman, Ayem walked among her people, to examine their scars.

At Narsis, Ayem found the Great Lake bloated with shells. They rose up, and in plaintive voice cried, "When shall you free us?"

And Ayem said, "You are already free. Do not cling to me."

And she bade her servitors excavate a great earth-womb, and Ayem gathered up the squalling souls, depositing them within.

Pure water flooded the lake anew, and the people of Narsis rejoiced. They praised ALMSIVI, although they knew not one of Her aspects walked amongst them now.

Ayem travelled on, to the city of Baal-Ae-Mora, anon Balmora. Here the canals were blood-crusted and the people lamented. Ayem bade her servitors make nets of their veins and cast them into the waters. They drew up the Memory of Battle. It howled, fanged-arms flashing, "You think to forget me so easily? Inconstant people!" And the Memory ran amok, terrifying the residents of Baal-Ae-Mora.

"Foolish one," said Ayem. "How do go? They shall long to forget you now."

And the Memory paused at Ayem's tone. "What is my response then?"

"Come, set yourself here, at the city's centre, so all may look upon you."

And the Memory of Battle did stand in a pose of feral glory. Ayem summoned her servitors and they draped the Memory in glass from the earth's heart and pearls pried from dreugh-dens. Ayem then breathed upon the Memory, making it real. And the people did gasp at this, for when the sun shone upon the Memory's form, its light shattered.

Ayem left Baal-Ae-Mora with this reminder, and continued her progress. (This statue no longer stands. The foul work of Apostates.) She came then to Asa-Nur, anon Blacklight. Many women were lost in mourning, rubbing ash into their faces.

"Why do you weep?" Ayem said.

And a woman replied, "Many of our men were slain by the Northerners."

Ayem looked to the great funeral pyre, frowned. "But they are gone."

"Which is why we weep."

And Ayem summoned her servitors, gathered up the corpse-smoke. She shaped it into masks of the lost men, placed them upon her servitors.

"See here," said Ayem. "You need not weep for the living."

The women rejoiced, danced, sang. They embraced the simulacra of their husbands, brothers, sons. And in time, belief would make them real.

And Ayem left Asa-Nur, and continued on.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	18. Sermon 18

Sermon 18

For this was the dawn of Resdaynia, when Chimer and Dwemer lived under the wise and benevolent rule of ALMSIVI and Her champion, the Hortator. And Ayem would ever guide the Hortator, closer to him than his jugular vein. This is the second of the three lessons of ruling kings.

"You must learn to mock God. Love is not given to anger. If stepping upon my image will save you, do it. Yes, a thousand times yes. Grind me into the dust and dirt; I am made of stronger stuff than pride. If you meet me upon the road, take my cloak, take my flesh, kill me. Do not fill idols of stone and wood with wealth. You will not find me there.

"I shall meet you, again and again. You need not fear. A man, a woman, this skin matters not. I judge you upon the scales of sacrilege. Burn down the shrine, burn down the greatest temple. And if they ask why, say it was to be remembered, and for this alone. For the symbol is power. The Sharmat knows this, and he has named the centre. There he dances, dances, dances, becoming more in whirling along the spiral. This is the true path.

"Cling to nothing, not even me. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Why forsake the House of Troubles, is it not another guilt-demon born of fearful minds? You misdiagnose me. The House of Troubles is a pyramid masquerading as a square. It is not what you think. The Four Corners lead to the Apex, the Beginning Place, the pinnacle and Tower. You chant their names, BAL DAGON MALAC SHEOG. They are but spectres, Gatekeepers of the walking-way. This is another spiral, an inverse one, fuelled by bitter disbelief. Follow it if you desire, but prepare for pleasure. The Tower is the death of Mystery, and its Gatekeepers protect you from this foul murder. Pity the House of Troubles, for they suffer by belief.

"The Triune way is another spiral, the reverse. Seht is the Creator, Vehk the Preserver, and I AM. Now my words are a flaming sword and many-pointed stars. They lay upon my brow and mark my kingship. Do not slink from me. I offer no judgement; this is the tragedy of man. No, in me you shall discover a taxonomy of love, the anatomy of faith. Which is brother-sister to hope, and all are beholden to love. Draw your blade now, beloved. Strike me down; exult in the spurt of my blood, the snap of my bones. Feast on me if you wish. Yes, yes, yes a thousand times yes. I have ordained a path for you; all others are no-paths. Walk like Me, and I shall Walk like you.

"For let this be your Photosis, your light-filling. Replace the emptiness with Me, and you shall rule as king unvanquished. Does this thought please you? Do not reply yet; live a moment longer, or many times. I shall be waiting for your answer at the next kalpa, when possibility stands upon a single leg, straining to carry the burden of being. Turn away from me, and I shall smile. Come, again and again, a thousand, thousand times. I am the death of shame."

These are Ayem's words to the Hortator, writ in the passing of her presence.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	19. Sermon 19

Sermon 19

Ayem continued her wanderings for a time. The Mother of Mercy raised up many from the dust, righted altars and offered incense. Her servitors aided all, and to this day one may see children playing with miniature effigies bearing their faces.

And Ayem paused beside the Sea of Ghosts, resting 'neath the shade of an Emperor Parasol. Her presence pressed heavily against the thin membrane of perception, drawing the Void Ghost. It walked as a priestess of a vanished faith, and came upon Ayem.

"What does a netchiman do here?" said the priestess, for Ayem still wore this skin.

"I am merely resting, elder," replied Ayem. Although she could see the Void Ghost's Sithis-shape, she feigned ignorance for there is power in propriety.

"May I sit with you?" said the priestess.

Ayem acquiesced, the priestess sat beside her. Together they stared out at the mist-shrouded Sea.

"There is a great temple beneath these waves," said the priestess. "With walls of coral, mosaicked in lattices of refracted light."

And Ayem pondered this. "Why do you not seek this temple, elder?"

"I am old and bitter. You still possess the audacity of hope."

Ayem smiled. "There is a greater temple still. Walk to the horizon, and there, as the sun melts and drips its heat onto the earth, you shall find…" And Ayem, who possessed a grain of Vehk's cunning, said no more.

The priestess gripped Ayem's shoulders. "Tell me what lies there!"

And Ayem kissed the priestess, silent.

"A coy rebuttal," said the priestess. "Very well, in my sea-lost temple you shall find a greater treasure than even this."

"Oh?" Ayem played at pondering. "Perhaps I should go and find it."

The priestess rubbed her hands in glee. "You must overturn every pebble in your search."

"I do not know," said Ayem. "I should journey to the rim of the world; I believe my treasure is more splendid."

Gnashing her teeth, the priestess shook her head. "No, no! There is nothing beyond the horizon but more sea!"

"How can I trust you? I shall be tiling the ocean, while you dance to joy's drumbeat."

"I am giving you this gift!" cried the priestess. "In this drowned cathedral you will find the sunken books and broken staves of sorcerer-kings. With them you shall make such a magic as to break time."

Ayem clapped her hands together. "You have convinced me. But I need surety from you."

"Which is?"

"We shall press our backs together, close our eyes. The first to look may go where they wish."

The priestess agreed, and they assumed the pose of the Yoke.

Ayem sat like this till her shadow lengthened and the water rose around her. She opened her eyes at a great cry.

"Mistress, mistress!"

For it was the Hortator, come seeking his Mother's countenance.

"Mistress," he said. "Why do you linger here alone, at the edge?"

For the Void Ghost had vanished. Ayem smiled at this.

"There are those, Blessed Nerevar who drink lie's venom so often they grow immune. To them, deception's flavour is sweet and welcome. This is the tragedy of the Third Corner of the House of Troubles, to ever fit the mould presented, treacherous as liquid."

And the Hortator did not understand this lesson then, but would through cruel experience, now, or in a latter life.

"Mistress, forgive me for interrupting your meditations, but darkness has fallen upon the city of Muat."

Ayem did stand, only then casting off the netchiman's cloak.

"I am ready. Yet first a question: How did you recognize me, in this ragged form?"

And Nerevar smiled. "A diamond smeared in dirt is still a diamond; wisdom wrapped in rags is still wisdom."

And Ayem made a mudra of benediction. "Blessed are you Nerevar-named-Hortator, who is my truest servant."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	20. Sermon 20

Sermon 20

For this was the dawn of Resdaynia, when Chimer and Dwemer lived under the wise and benevolent rule of ALMSIVI and Her champion, the Hortator. And Ayem would ever guide the Hortator, closer to him than his jugular vein. This is the third of the three lessons of ruling kings, revealed on the road to Muat.

"You stand against the Sharmat, who is the devil, this is good. A king must have an enemy. All true beauty is forged in opposition, remember this. The Sharmat is not your shadow; you are twin reflections in an ever-rippling pool. Do not label him 'neath the rubric of evil. This is the easy path, the fool's path. To catalogue calamity is to limit it, leech it of unknown terror. A mistake. Fear is the soul's scourge. Stay hungry, and you shall never bow to the scholar, bow to his laws and bone-dry decorum. His ink is the blood of mindless things that leave their thinking to another. Do not embrace this fate. The Sharmat is a disciple of this path, for it is another walking way. The rejection of knowledge is the proto-knowledge, writ in our marrow, when music was new. Remember the words of the Sharmat:

If I could take

the part of you,

which still beats in me.

The throbbing pulse of your perfection.

If I could take it,

crush it,

devour it,

I would.

A thousand times yes.

Let me hold you,

skin soft as moonlight,

and as subtle.

Yes, you feel it too.

If I could trace

the topographies of your spirit,

the dreamscape of your flesh.

Carve scars and chasms

into your shining form,

I would.

A thousand times yes.

This agony, what is it worth?

Ensured by some cosmic arbiter,

or not.

And if not, how do I justify this pain?

If I could smother it,

this lambent flame,

Extinguish it.

Cruel, callous, yes.

a thousand times yes.

Your soul is deep as an ancient sea,

and this old wolf, dreaming, dying,

clings to you still

in his toothless maw.

Swift as the setting sun, yes,

how we strode this world,

Drunk on its green and immemorial age.

Yes, you, my shadow,

together we knew no shame.

Lost now, forgotten,

no one to mourn,

but on a silent night,

if you strain to listen,

you may hear my name,

carried on the wind.

"These are his words to you, Hortator, and all who walk like you. Do not spurn the Sharmat's love. Why twine about the poet's false verses, which seek to shape the world to his liking? Define yourself; let this be your mantle. Shapeless, formless, a breath of a thing. Yes, lose yourself in the stream, return to me, again and again. In this way, you will be as the Sharmat, and erase him, for a single soul does not require two bodies. When you pierce his Tower, find his heart-lair, weep freely. You cannot reach heaven through violence.

"Let this be my final offering, all else is ornamentation."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	21. Sermon 21

Sermon 21

Then did Ayem and the Hortator, her servant, come to the city of Muat, anon Necrom. Its white walls rose like the crowns of waves. From its dreaming spires flew banners proclaiming the names of the honoured dead. Since the war with the Northern men, many names glistened like fresh ink-wounds.

"What is my purpose here?" said Ayem.

And Nerevar slapped her across the face.

"A wise retort," she said. "But I say this for the benefit of the blind."

Nerevar bowed. "Your mercy is boundless. A great evil eats at Muat's heart. The dead rise, demanding satisfaction."

And Ayem knew this, but needed it to be said.

"Walk behind me, Hortator."

They entered the city, still, silent. The breathing citizens hid in the hills and mountains. Ayem led Nerevar into moisture-slick catacombs. Skulls lined the walls, sockets set with lapis lazuli. Ayem walked till she came to a great hall, vaulted like the heavens, strung with starlight.

And there, upon a ribbed throne, sat a diamond-boned husk, face leafed in gold, onyx-eyed.

"Who comes to the Hall of the Pale King?" it said, voice a stream of dust.

"I am love," said Ayem.

The Pale King's laugh was a bone-rattle. "Love did not save us! We loved our wives, our country, our selves, yet here we lie! Choking on blood, screaming our agony, where was love to comfort us?"

And at this a great sigh filled the Hall. From alcoves hiving the wall emerged the unquiet dead, a multitude, pressing close.

Nerevar drew his blade, ready to defend his Mother.

"Fool!" cried the Pale King. "We are dead. You cannot cleave the spirit."

"What do you seek?" asked Ayem.

"We shall scour the life from the land! The ungrateful living who sent us to die, for what? Let them see the price of their folly, paid in the wailing of widows."

"Do not cling to me," said Ayem. "You are free of suffering."

"But what was its purpose? When I lived 'neath the sun, I was a proud man, skilled in arms, admired, desired. Now I am empty, struck down by a stray arrow flung from a coward's bow. My brother-soldiers trampled me into the earth, and I died coughing up dirt and offal. Where is love in this?"

And the multitude of spirits took up the cry, "Where is love? Where is love?" Their rage steamed, froze, fell to the ground as splinters.

Nerevar said, "Mistress, how do we contend with this?"

"Turn from me, Hortator."

He obeyed, shielding his face

Ayem threw off her cloak.

"It is here, and ever was."

The light of Ayem's third eye was searing clarity. The dead were overcome with great ecstasy. They whirled, howling in hundreds of languages:

Mother of Mercy, Thee who are supreme,

Deliver us from the stream of remembrance.

Make of Thy body a chalice to contain,

The assemblies of heaven and hell.

In Thee we find the death of all sin.

Thee, who are a stave in the spokes

Of kalpa's wheel.

Grind time to stillness,

And offer to Thy tattered servants,

The extinction of the self.

And the Pale King gnashed his teeth at this rapture.

"Mother of illusions! You mislead them. This is not love but mere attachment."

Nerevar did raise his blade at this. "You deny the world its comfort!"

He charged at the Pale King, and his love for the Mother transfigured him into a being of living fire. His path split the tapestry of time, Nerevar skewered the Pale King upon his blade, which was no longer a sword but the essence of a sword.

"You do not answer my challenge!" cried the Pale King. "This is sophistry."

And Nerevar-named-Hortator cast the Pale King into time's mouth, cursing. Swiftly did Ayem stitch up this wound. Yet some spirit-flesh remained, and from this excess reality Ayem shaped a secret.

A fanged chakram, star-edged. Ayem raised her weapon aloft, naming it KALABHAKSA, Time-Devourer. Ayem spun Kalabhaksa, drawing in the unquiet dead, engulfing them. She severed their earthly attachments, dispersed their dust.

The bones lay silent, only Nerevar breathed.

He knelt before his mistress.

"Thus does love conquer death," he said.

And Ayem said nothing, for this was good enough.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	22. Sermon 22

Sermon 22

Muat anon Necrom knew much rejoicing after Ayem's victory. The Mother made of herself a statue, and the people did garland her, anointing her head with milk and scented oil. During all this Nerevar remained kneeling at his Mother's feet, blade laid across his lap.

This communion lasted 33 days. Ayem blessed the people then, returning to Veloth anon Almalexia, Hortator in tow.

Ayem journeyed to the Temple of Mind-Hunger, which is Seht's seat. She and the Hortator stood 'neath a shaft of light, filtering from unknown heights. Ayem told Seht of her travails, Nerevar kept silent.

The walls grew eyes then, breathed, pulsed like living flesh. Metal sculptures twisted in wonderful union, merging, melting. From the protean meeting of limbs emerged an image of Seht. He was fecund and full-figured, Seht-who-is-Azura, womb of the cosmos.

"Why do you speak of this to God? Do you think Him finite?"

"I do this for civility's sake, which allows animals to form societies."

And Nerevar, the student, said, "Mistress, what use is prayer if You can read our hearts?"

Seht's thought-rumblings made the temple tremble, but Ayem laughed.

"Love is girded with small lies. We hide our true faces to please our doubles. Thus do you speak to God, though She already knows the ending."

And these words rang with such truth Seht carved them upon his temple's gate, but in the space between light, so only the wise could read them.

Then did Vivec come, bearing aloft an earth-boned spear.

"Where did you come by this?" asked Seht.

"I found it within me." He paid no heed to Kalabhaksa, for it is a hidden thing.

And Ayem could see Molag Bal's shadow squirming 'neath Vivec's.

"Be wary of the secrets plucked from love's rotting corpse."

"Shall I beware this secret too, sister?" And Vivec revealed his heart.

Nerevar, a mere man, was struck dumb. For symbols glowed upon Vivec's centre, shaping a syllable his mouth could not form. And this formlessness was free, and could be filled with possibility.

"This is a fragment," said Ayem.

And Vivec, who stood in the middle said, "Man is made of such."

Seht sighed out iron vapour. "Only trouble proceeds from disillusionment."

But Vivec laughed, played a note upon his spear. And with this he vanished.

The secret's afterimage blazed before Nerevar.

"Mistress, I too wish to see as he does."

And Ayem, who is the Mother of Mercy said, "You will regret this."

"But man is marked by regrets of the flesh. This is what patterns us."

And Ayem could not dispute this, for it was her wisdom.

"Molag Bal holds material promises," said Seht. "Seek him, and learn Hortator."

Thus we find revelation in revulsion.

This sermon is forbidden.

Do not follow this path; it is a poet-wrought lie.

This sermon is untrue, yet more true than the rest.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	23. Sermon 23

Sermon 23

For this was the noon of Resdaynia, when Chimer and Dwemer lived under the wise and benevolent rule of ALMSIVI and Her champion, the Hortator. And Ayem would ever guide the Hortator, closer to him then his jugular vein. Thus did Ayem lead Nerevar through the Forsaken Lands, in search of sunrise.

67 days less one passed, and teacher and student came to a circle of bones. Piled high, ash pouring from sockets and wounds, retched from broken jaws. Ayem looked on this scar and sighed.

"Here is the testament of one who walks a smaller spiral."

"Is it not a road to heaven?" asked Nerevar.

"No, but belief might change this."

And Ayem read the bones, withdrew Kalabhaksa. She laid it down, and from its empty centre rose Molag Bal, six-armed and terrible in his beauty.

"I thought I should sleep beneath the earth for a thousand years. Your sister-brother's love is cruel."

"As is all love," said Ayem.

And Molag Bal laughed, for he remembered her creation, as he remembered his own.

"What boon do I offer, for my freedom's return?"

Ayem retrieved Kalabhaksa, balanced it upon a finger. "My student comes seeking wisdom."

Nerevar bowed to the King of Rape. "I wish you to carve God's name upon my heart."

"You already know Her name," replied Molag Bal.

"No, a different name, I swim in possibility," said Ayem.

Molag Bal bowed to her. "You have recalled much, sister-who-birthed-me."

"I ask that you teach my disciple what he will not learn from me, brother-of-my-womb."

And Molag Bal bowed to the five directions, sealing this fate.

"Come then, fortunate one." Molag Bal stretched out his arms. "I have been roughly used, and my love made momentarily gentle."

And Ayem did watch as Nerevar-named-Hortator went into the King of Rape. He traced the shape of their symmetry, marvelling at their contours.

"Open to me, beloved." Molag Bal presented his spear. "I shall carve the key."

Their spears slid together, friction fierce and fire-hot.

Nerevar bit Molag Bal's lip, pomegranate red. "This is a transgression."

"There lies its power."

And the tiger-touch of their bodies summoned the spirits of those who'd died condemned by love's arbitrators. They lapped up the shared sweat, revelling in the taste of polymorphous perversity.

"Is this the colour of shame?" said Nerevar, touching the place where he met Molag Bal's spear.

"No, this is passion's hue."

Yet Nerevar's mind was disquieted, convinced he rutted on his father's grave. To comfort him, the King of Rape whispered these words:

What seems unnatural is also natural; diversity is the end of life.

So discover your own difference in the love of husband or of wife.

This couplet has since become the only scripture to stem from Molag Bal.

And Ayem blessed this passion play, this dominance of flesh. For in this way is masculine pride overcome, and mercy made possible.

Nerevar carved rivulets into Molag Bal's back, the King of Rape bit false things into Nerevar's neck. Howling his fury, Molag Bal thrust his spear into Nerevar's Second Aperture, laying him low.

Gasping, he writhed in the ash, Molag Bal enveloping him.

"I shall not surrender myself a second time," he said. Kissing Nerevar's spear tip, he sucked out victory's seed, and vanished in shimmering smoke.

Ayem let Nerevar lie till the sky darkened and his ardour cooled.

"Reclaim your armour, Hortator," she said. "The spirits of love shall soon return, and you will not survive another performance."

And Nerevar wiped down his golden limbs, painted in mingled lust.

"He was too great an opponent," he said. "Yet I could have defeated him."

"He is the shape of betrayal," said Ayem. "Through your violation is he strengthened."

"I cannot let this stand. I will have his secret."

And Ayem, mother of Mercy, wrapped her cloak about him.

"Come, we should not speak of such under the ever-watchful stars. You will give the King of Rape the bounty of his sowing under a different sun."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	24. Sermon 24

Sermon 24

As Ayem and the humbled Nerevar returned to Veloth, anon Almalexia, she offered this wisdom as balm.

The Scripture of the Self:

I was born of the absolute darkness,

To bring the light of clarity.

You, who have longed for me,

Take me to yourselves.

And you, who are deaf,

I grant you ears to hear.

And you who are blind,

I grant you eyes to see.

I hold destruction in my right hand,

And nothing in my left.

I am barren,

And mother to millions.

I am a slave in silver shackles,

And king of black brambles.

I am a veiled whore,

And a perfumed virgin.

I weep at war,

And proscribe peace.

I shape man in my image,

And I am formless.

I am honoured by snake-tongued deceivers,

And cast into the wastes by the merciful.

I make of myself a mirror for the lost,

Glimpse your reflection, unfolding like a labyrinth.

I am clawless, toothless, terrible in my fury,

Ready your sword, foolish one!

You who seize at me,

Find mist in your palm.

And you who hate me,

Shall know my love alone.

I despise only wisdom,

And array myself in ignorance.

I am an empty book,

And I contain all words.

I am beloved of the barbarians,

And stoned by my family.

I offer life everlasting,

And I am your annihilation.

Let my name remain unspoken,

And shout it from the mountains.

I anoint you as my prophet,

To carry the burden of my yoke,

Which is nothing.

And to me shall I gather all people,

And raise you above their clamour.

Why do you curse my pride?

I, I am godless,

And I am the gate of God.

This is the shape of Ayem, Mother of Mercy. The foolish will repeat this mantra till enlightenment comes. The wise know Ayem cannot be defined in any language, not even the one whispered by the earth-bones, which mad poets speak. The Hortator wrote down this scripture on gold-flecked parchment, covered it in kisses. Then he cast it into a heap of guar dung. And Ayem did smile at this, for this was an act of worship. Many years later, or perhaps not, she revealed two more lines:

I am the undreamt dreamer, awake in bed,

And everything looks perfect inside my head.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	25. Sermon 25

Sermon 25

In time Ayem and Nerevar arrived at the gates of the Mourning Hold, the Hortator wracked with thought-pain.

"Why do you praise me so?" asked Ayem.

And Nerevar said, "I know why you let me stand against Molag Bal, and fail."

Ayem said nothing.

"You wished me to learn Heaven cannot be reached through violence."

And Ayem smiled, blessed the Hortator. "Wise are you above all men."

"But Mother, now the King of Rape is victor. He believes love is weak."

"Child, he is correct."

Yet Ayem could see Nerevar's anguish, and she, who is Mother of Mercy, pitied him.

"Summon the glory of your House, 999 valorous men."

And Nerevar obeyed, calling together this host. They knelt before Ayem and Nerevar-named-Hortator, and she did not begrudge him this heresy.

"Brother Seht, I require your substance."

And from the Mourning Hold marched a legion of servitors, pectorals jewelled, eyes afire.

They spoke with one voice,

"WHAT IS YOUR DESIRE, SISTER?"

And she genuflected. The servitors unravelled their ruby-stringed veins. They shaped them into masks in the image of Nerevar. Then Ayem breathed solid sunlight onto the masks, making them real.

The servitors advanced, placing the masks upon the 999 warriors.

"Stand."

And the warriors obeyed, faces mirrors of the Hortator.

"We shall go thus armed to the King of Rape."

Raising Kalabhaksa as a standard, Ayem led Indoril's pride into the Forsaken Lands. Nerevar walked beside her, puzzled.

"What shall we do when we meet him, Mother?"

"Act without acting."

And Ayem led the legion to the bone circle, where Molag Bal danced with the dead.

"I am surprised to see you so soon, beloved," he said. "Was my art too tender?"

And then his gaze widened, beholding the legion.

"What is this? You have spawned reflections."

"We have come for your secret," said Nerevar, unsheathing his sword.

And the King of Rape laughed. "I am rooted to the world. I am materialism's champion, so long as I stand, no blade can harm me."

"Then lie back, and I shall do the work."

With a battle cry, Nerevar spurred his legion into a charge. Molag Bal unwound his arms, displaying the black spirals leading to the negation of the self.

But Nerevar, who knew Molag Bal, walked the reverse. As the King of Rape turned his dread gaze upon the Golden Legion, Nerevar swept aside his rancour, and it became a soft, docile thing.

Yet Molag Bal would not present himself so easily. He swiped his talons at the legion, rending them to red-drink. Yet Nerevar, who knew Molag Bal, walked the reverse. He erased these paths in the sands of possibility, presenting a space where his legions where eagle-winged and eternal.

And Molag Bal gnashed his teeth. "Be cursed Nerevar-named-Hortator. Truly are double-crossed lovers the deadliest foes." (From the King of Rape does this proverb come. It is undeniable.)

Like sun-etched waves the legions crashed against Molag Bal's legs. They pierced him with their spears, placed their weight upon them, drew him down. Yet Molag Bal would not fall. Propriety demanded he relent, yet he laughed at propriety.

Thus Nerevar once again called on love's memory. His thoughts were barbed and bitter, and Molag Bal winced at the recollection. In this moment of distraction, Nerevar struck, adding his spear to the tumult. He joined to the 999. The result was an inelegant number, and imperfect. Flawed reality crashed upon the King of Rape, and he collapsed, supine, beneath the burden of knowledge.

With a great cheer Nerevar and his images fell upon Molag Bal, spears thrusting. And the King of Rape reviled them, naming them the sons of liars, dogs and wolf-headed women. Yet ecstasy tinged his voice, for such is the way of things.

And Ayem watched Molag Bal's undoing. Spears pierced his twin apertures, and the spray of blood was like leaping minnows, glinting. Golden flesh merged with red, patterned with sweat born of a thunderstorm's sigh. The teeth-grit was tangible, shimmering in the pleasure-heated air.

Molag Bal, groaning, limbs spread and moan-taught, spilt his essence three times. This elicited a cry from the legions, for it was a mark of assent, and proof of their skill in love and war. Rage-spent, Nerevar dipped his spear for a final assault, before flicking battle's seed from its tip.

"This will serve as a good lesson," said Nerevar. And his legions bowed in agreement, withdrawing to re-gird their loins.

And Molag Bal knelt, body wet with opalescent tears.

"Do you exult in my degradation?" he said.

"No, father-of-my-mother."

"A pity, I thought we were alike."

And as Nerevar lay back to pant out fatigue's excess, Molag Bal reached for him with ill-intent.

Ayem made of Kalabhaksa a gate, cast it at the King of Rape. For 33 moments he was banished to the Outer Darkness, where he could abuse none but himself.

Kalabhaksa returned to Ayem's hand, and the legions muttered prayers at this display of divine violence.

"Come Hortator," Ayem said, pulling him up. "Sweat out your sin in a quieter place."

And to the Golden Legion Ayem said,

"Blessed are you, who dragged down deceit with the weight of righteousness. Become as holy anchors, steadying the temple-ship. You shall hold it true in deep waters, where the waves are vast as ignorance and twice as hungry."

And she formed a secret mudra, known only to the Legions. This sign was an ever-burning brand on their hearts, and their faith could not be extinguished. Thus do the chosen of Indoril guard the high fanes today, bearing the face of Nerevar-named-Hortator, champion and student of the Mother of Mercy.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	26. Sermon 26

Sermon 26

And Ayem bade the Golden Legions return to Veloth anon Almalexia, to supervise her lessons. To Nerevar she said, "Did you bite the secret syllable from the King of Rape?"

The Hortator replied, "No, for the centre was empty. I know not how Vivec came by it."

"He found it in Molag Bal for he is like liquid, ever-changing and treacherous. Yet this too, is a spiral leading to God."

"And where shall I find it?"

And Ayem, who is Mother of Mercy said, "Let us see."

She took Nerevar, her student, in hand, and led him to the eastern sea. The water became a plain of mirrored glass. Nerevar looked down.

"I see a flame-wrought man, and he is smiling."

"This is the Sharmat," said Ayem.

And Nerevar did not dare look at Ayem's reflection, for he was not prepared to behold all.

They journeyed on, to the land of snakes and snow demons.

"Why must we come so far in search of truth?" asked Nerevar.

"It is known the farther one travels for wisdom, the better-quality it is."

And Ayem led Nerevar to the Lake of Black Lotuses, and the Golden Pavilion floating at its centre.

"This is another kind of Tower," said the Hortator. And Ayem blessed him.

"Indeed, to the wise all truth is alike."

Within the Golden Pavilion lay the Devil-Tiger, emperor in exile. He welcomed the Mother and her student.

"What can you teach us?" asked Ayem.

And the Devil-Tiger cast off his snake-skin robe, displaying his stripes, which were spirals in hypostasis.

"And what else?" asked Ayem.

The Devil-Tiger danced, moving like muscled water. Nerevar watched, enthralled.

"How do I learn this art?" he asked.

The Devil-Tiger spread his arms in embrace. "Define me."

Ayem and Nerevar took up calligraphy brushes, dipped them in possibility. Nerevar started at the Devil-Tiger's centre, brush strokes long and lingering, struggling to encompass his size.

He looked at Ayem's work, frowned.

"Mistress, I see no symbols."

"I have painted within the stripes. The fool lets his body define him, determine his destiny. Here, I have made a different frame, enclosing love."

And Nerevar understood. "You have told him what he is. Now he can say what he is not."

The Hortator looked upon his own calligraphy, stark on the Devil-Tiger's pelt. He wiped it clean.

"Paint yourself into being."

Ayem's smile was the Devil-Tiger's twin.

"He is ready to dance," she said.

And the Devil-Tiger took him upon the spiral. Their limbs intertwined till they were a single being, bone soldered to bone. The Devil-Tiger crushed him close, flesh sheathing Nerevar like a scabbard. Locked together, thrust-born sweat dappled golden arms, back, the swell of masculine undoing. With a swirl of claws, a lashing of his tail, the Devil-Tiger urged Nerevar into a frenzy. Incense-musk permeated the Devil-Tiger's fur, and Nerevar inhaled it, drunk on the marks of mortality. And then, at the cry-chorused climax, the Hortator lunged forward, spear piercing the Devil-Tiger.

Nerevar kissed the wet wound he'd made. "Forgive me."

And the Devil-Tiger caressed his tears, drank them. "Fear not, I am beyond death. Come, this was only the prelude."

The whirlwind-dance rose once more. The Devil-Tiger bade Ayem join their motions. She declined, for she did not need another body to be embodied.

Their dance continued for 33 days, Ayem measuring time by rotating Kalabhaksa upon her finger. On the 33rd day, the dancers collapsed into a heap of tangled sensuality, spent.

Gnawing Nerevar's nape, the Devil-Tiger whispered these words, "PADHOMAE GHARTOOK PADHOMAE."

And in a moment of spontaneous remembrance Nerevar cried, "AE AYEM."

The Devil-Tiger purred at this lust-formed asceticism. "The dance continues inside your head. Find your own spiral."

Nerevar bit the Devil-Tiger's tongue, drawing blood. "This scar I name mine."

And the Devil-Tiger, overcome with tenderness, offered Nerevar a parting gift. Genuflecting, he licked the Hortator's spear into a more subtle shape, fit for writing love-letters to nameless deities.

"Now go," said the Devil Tiger, "Lest I grow attached."

Nerevar bowed his thanks, returning to Ayem's side.

"Did you learn the secret syllable?" she said.

And Nerevar smiled.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	27. Sermon 27

Sermon 27

Then did Ayem and her student, Nerevar, leave the Devil-Tiger's presence. Ayem stood upon the edge of the east, Kalabhaksa raised.

"Let time take us where it wills."

She cast Kalabhaksa high, and its light was unto a guiding star. Ayem and Nerevar followed the star into the west, to the Black Lands. Here dwelt the singers whose swords could split the Universe's thought-substance. At a left-handed temple, Ayem encountered the Void Ghost, wearing the skin of a warrior-maiden.

"Do you not fear the consequences of sundering the earth-bones?" said Ayem.

And the warrior-maiden replied, "No, for our children are ungrateful things, and we make of their inheritance ash."

And Nerevar, whose third eye was only half-blind said, "Warrior-maiden, you stand with feet in two rivers, why?"

And the warrior-maiden who was the Void Ghost laughed. "You have cast your soul into the biting ice-water of unknowing, brave one. I give you a boon."

And Nerevar, who walked in the Mother of Mercy's path, said, "Withhold your knowledge from these people, thus sparing them."

And the warrior-maiden bowed to the five directions, sealing this fate. Her vanishing left a world-wound from which doubt-demons issued forth.

Ayem said, "Nerever-named-Hortator, you offer the mercy of ignorance, but it shall not be enough."

Thus did Ayem go to an incense-bathed queen of the east, saying, "Take your ships and leave this land. Soon comes the cleansing fire, pure and naked in its hatred of life."

And the queen, who saw wisdom, agreed. Thus did the Sunset People come to live among us, through the guidance of Ayem, who is Mother of Mercy.

Before leaving the Black Land, Ayem offered Nerevar one more fragment of truth's mosaic. She travelled to the court of a lion-throned emperor fond of riddles.

"I have here a question," said the emperor.

And Ayem said nothing.

"Answer me this: How does one live a good life?"

And Ayem smiled, but said nothing.

"Tell me!" cried the emperor. "I beseech you!"

And Ayem said, "I shall not share wisdom with one so excitable."

And the emperor settled back, thought for a span.

"Very well, I care not if you tell me."

And Ayem said, "Such apathy is unbecoming in a truth-seeker."

The emperor thought for a span more, folded his arms, saying nothing.

And Ayem said, "I have nought to offer those who cannot make up their minds."

Saying thus, she left. This became a celebrated incident, and many in the Black Land found romance in it. And Nerevar, who pitied the emperor, wrote down his own guide to happiness, which he gave to a serving girl. Covetous, she did not share this wisdom, instead using it remake herself into a cloud-walking ascetic, but this is a separate tale.

Ayem and Nerevar, her student, travelled on, under the light of Kalabhaksa. It led to the sea-peopled south. The veil rose, and Ayem and Nerevar came to the mist-made isle of the PSJJJ. The dream-robed adepts assembled to dissect Ayem and her disciple.

"It is an egg," said one.

"No," said another. "It is a man."

"Fools and worse than fools," said a third. "It is a graven image charged with misdirection."

And Nerevar, who listened well, drew his sword, cutting away the adepts lest their shackling-speech define Ayem, limiting her. The PSJJJ disciples brought arms to bear, bristling with logic, but Nerevar burnt them with the fire of irrational faith.

"We must misinterpret this miracle," said a PSJJJ disciple.

And before they could recalibrate, Ayem gathered up Nerevar, tearing through the Celestial Dome. The PSJJJ disciples watched this ascent, and as their palace collapsed about them one cried:

"Ah! It was an untethered city!"

Ayem and Nerevar travelled on, farther than even lying admirals, following Kalabhaksa's wake. They came to its resting place, and beyond lay haze-hued plains and mountains. Nerevar reached for this, his progress halted by a wall of invisible light.

He ran, yet remained rooted in place.

"Mistress," he said. "How do I continue?"

And Ayem said, "You struggle against the spirit of limitation."

And Nerevar said, "I can see the space clearly! Why does it taunt me so?"

And Ayem said, "Leave this land for explorers yet to come. A world without mystery is a sad place."

And with this Nerevar was enlightened.

Kalabhaksa fell into the sea, and from the ripples arose an angel. Its wings were the tattered scriptures of lesser ways, 118 eyes blinked from its blue body.

"I greet you," she said, and her voice was green.

"What is this beauty?" asked Nerevar.

"I am wisdom, God's masterpiece."

And Nerevar, who walked the spiral said, "This is false, God's masterpiece is chaos in motion."

"This is my secret name."

And the angel lowered her wings, till they brushed, feather-soft, against Nerevar's lips. Their kiss was the roar of thunder, and the perfect mind. The angel dissolved into a patina of stars, and Ayem set these sky-diamonds upon Nerevar's brow, so all might see him crowned in glory.

He turned from the wall of invisible light.

"Does nothing lie north, Mother?"

Retrieving Kalabhaksa from the abyss, Ayem made of it a mirror of revelation.

Nerevar glimpsed ash-rain falling upon the steel skeletons of toppled towers, and city-craters which glowed green in the night.

"They sought to reach heaven through violence," he said.

And Ayem bowed.

"Then let us return home. I have seen enough of the world. Hence forth, I travel the geography of my spirit."

And Ayem said nothing, for this was good enough.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	28. Sermon 28

Sermon 28

As Ayem and Nerevar, who was her student, crossed the sky, returning to Vvanderfal, Ayem revealed this wisdom,

The Scripture of Marriage:

"Do not think me less in my disunity. My fragmentation is but an illusion. Look for me upon the canvas of your being. Skin yourself, and seek to contain every part of me. You shall always be less one.

"Do not mistake truth. Azura births us, and Mephala is the Mistress of divine interplay, it is she who moves matter. Boethiah is the cruel necessity which welcomes all.

"Thus too does Seht exhale the Universe, and Vehk is the Universe's heat, and I am heat's death. From the ever-echoing syllable do I arise, a vibration shuddering up existence's spine, never reaching the mind. For to arrive at an end is to know limitation. Be an atlas of smoke, twist and turn in the serpentine dance of a dragon. For to me, Vvanderfal is but a seed on my tongue, waiting to be swallowed, and all the oceans are but drops of oil upon my lotus-feet.

"This is the nightmare-in-daytime to some, yet you, whose soul is glass and ebony, need not fear. Your uncreation is half a key. Come to the gateless gate knowing gladness. Beyond lies extinction, and possibility's flowering.

"Listen. You can hear it now, the great boom of the Doom Drum. Be not afraid. It is the announcement of our nuptials. I come to you clad in the east's wealth, appearing as lightning, and my words are stars. Do not shrink from me. My bridal-bed is all-embracing as the womb. Its sheets swirl around you, amniotic, and I cradle you close to my breast. I am mother to those who need one. Father to others. Friend and lover I provide in equal measure. Walk like me, and I walk like you.

"The Sharmat knows the aching longing which lies buried in all hearts. He was cast out into the dark by his beloved. No vows join him. He is the wolf, cold and weary, desperate for warmth. He is the slave searching for a master. Nerevar-named-Hortator, you, and those in your image, do not spurn him. His love is many-barbed and bladed, but its shape is true. Take him into yourself, and thus know transfiguration. For the Sharmat is love's hypo-reality, and the weak fly from this. You are better-formed though. Hold him close, revel in the screams torn from your lips, exult in your bleeding throat. This is the wolf's love, and it is sculpted like hunger, gilded with red fangs. In this sweat-bathed orgy of duality, you shall know, for an agonizing instant, the meta-reality which bids us speak our lines, play our parts. Religion seeks to cloak this in law and desert-born prejudice, and it stems from misguided mercy. The elders do not wish to see their children terrified. But God is known through alien horror, and you must soak yourself in faith-acid if you wish to dissolve your eyes into sight.

"And they shall cheer to see us joined. Dance with me, 'neath the falling blossoms, dance, hold me near. Listen to the breath on my lips, my dowry: THEOSIS.

"To your husband-wife, offer the appropriate gift, thus sealing love. To Seht-who-is-Azura provide the possibility. To Vehk-who-is-Mephala, give possibility's motion, and to Ayem-who-is-Boethiah, sacrifice only that which you cannot live without. Do not be like the Dry People, who throw their firstborn into the burning mouth of a brass god. Keep close your potential, and be a microcosm of ALMSIVI, and Her mirror. For Seht is the body, Vehk is the breath in its lungs, the blood in its veins. And I, I AM."

And thus Ayem and Nerevar were united, prefiguring the divine marriage we shall all enjoy with our Mother-Father, in the meta-oblivion beyond kalpa's tyranny.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	29. Sermon 29

Sermon 29

Ayem and Nerevar alighted upon the shores of the Sea of Ghosts. Vivec, sensitive to such things, arrived to greet them.

"Sister, I bring calamity."

And Ayem said, "This is your shape sister-brother, I cannot change it."

Then did Vivec unfold his right fist, upon his palm rested an orrery of geared suns.

The orrery spoke with Seht's voice, fine as steel splinters, "We are harbingers, sister. With you dancing in other lands, the Lord of Razors believes Veloth undefended, and marches on your temple-city."

And Ayem laughed. "Does he think me so limited? I stand watch at my High Fane even now."

But Nerevar was troubled. "Mistress, does the First Corner of the House of Troubles have cause for joy?"

And Ayem smiled. "Indeed, for soon he shall see the face of God."

Seht said, "He leads a great host, and strife is its banner."

And Ayem raised Kalabhaksa, making of it a light-refracting lens. Its gaze was long, and Ayem saw the Army of Seven Pennants, throwing up red rust in its wake. And before it rode Betrayal, mounted on a weeping spirit which resembled nothing.

"We must halt this cataclysm, lest it turn the land red."

And Vivec said, "ALMSIVI has many arms."

And Ayem bowed.

Thus did ALMSIVI stand outside the gates of Veloth. Seht led a horde of bronze-scaled war-servitors. They beat their chests, and great was the roar which issued forth. Vivec commanded his Buoyant Armigers, armoured in bone-meld and mirth. Nerevar rode with his Golden Legion, faces mirrors of his own, stoic, convicted.

And Ayem did stretch out her spirit, enclosing them. For she fought beside every men, she was his sword and spear, his shield, his faith.

Then did the Army of Seven Pennants crest the horizon. Winged hell-hounds carried hosts of lesser demons in their maw. They retched them upon Veloth, where they spread like fire-terror. Then came the charred skeletons, leaping, dancing. They were a flesh-eating plague given form. Betrayal sounded his warhorn, and the Pennants advanced in a bee-hum rush.

First came the legion of sins waiting to be discovered. They tempted the Velothi into destructive configurations, casting down four temples. Vivec walked among the sins, invisible. He made of them a catalogue, sealed it with scripture. He placed this upon the breastplates of all who fought for ALMSIVI. The sins lost their mystery, and thus their allure. They were then easily dispatched by the Golden Legion.

Thus was the First Pennant struck.

Second came the legion of beautiful women who hid rattle-snakes beneath their loincloths. And many were the Velothi who wept 'neath their tender ministrations. Seht appeared before the legion as a spear of iron, tall as a tower. The legion exposed its strange flesh. But the snakes broke their fangs upon Seht. Undone, the legion sought to flee, but the war-servitors penned it in. And the Creator transformed the demonesses into rust-weeping pillars. (They stand today in the Garden of Harmony, in Mournhold, if your faith needs evidencing.)

Thus was the Second Pennant struck.

Third came the legion of beloved friends who never kept secrets. They slithered amidst the Velothi, promising much, providing little. Soon, brother was set against sister, wife against husband, the bulwark of propriety collapsing. Vivec took mosquito form, flitting amongst the legion. He learnt many forbidden things through mere listening, and spread his findings far and wide. This violation set the legion to bickering, their formation faltered. The Buoyant Armigers proved the final distraction.

Thus was the Third Pennant struck.

Fourth came the legion of water spirits who knew only thirst. They drank rivers, swallowed lakes, and many Velothi died as dry husks. Seht had his war-servitors dig a great pit. The Creator then placed a drop of his oil-essence within it. The water spirits eagerly drank, but they could not contain it. They drank till their bellies swelled and they writhed in pain. The Golden Legions fell upon them then.

Thus was the Fourth Pennant struck.

Fifth came the legion of lonely souls born in the wrong age. Their wailing confused the Velothi into stupor, and they wandered, dazed, lost to the world. Vivec went to the legion, and offered himself. Some, he gave Muatra. Others, he pressed into his thigh. Yet there were those who wanted neither. For them Vivec made a pleasure-space the size of his fingernail. (This gem is the centrepiece of Vvanderfal's crown jewels.) The war-servitors then gathered up the lost Velothi, carrying them home.

Thus was the Fifth Pennant struck.

Sixth came the legion of laws for an imaginary realm. They leapt amongst the Velothi, maddening them with false-talk and endless exegesis on nonsense languages. Seht appeared to the laws as the formula for a constructed Universe. To the laws on his right, he meant one thing, those on his left saw differently. Unable to agree on the real fantasy, a law ignited a burning-word battle. Soon, faulty logic's blood and gore littered the ground. The Buoyant Armigers swept up the remains, placing them as relics in the Temple of False Thinking.

Thus was the Sixth Pennant struck.

Last came the legion of inverse mothers who birthed death. Great was the catastrophe they wrought. Velothi became bone-shapes, rats nested in their gaping jaws. Seeking to hold back death, the war-servitors formed a wall. Yet their sinews grew rusty, their gears ground to dust. Sword and spear availed nought. The Golden Legion was unmade, the Buyount Armigers silenced. Seht and Vivec appeared to Ayem.

"This is your domain," they said.

And Ayem threw down her cloak, becoming the Star in the World's Mouth. She stood before the inverse mothers as golden thunder.

"Come to me," she said, raising Kalabhaksa and assuming the first pose.

And the mothers drowned in Ayem's sea, were enwombed by her, becoming less, becoming all.

Thus was the Seventh Pennant struck.

And the blood of the vanquished became ink, forming a poem to ALMSIVI'S glory. This is truth, yes, this is truth.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	30. Sermon 30

Sermon 30

The Seven Pennants were scattered, but Betrayal remained. Veloth burnt, and Betrayal cut a swathe through the smoke towards Ayem's High Fane, intent on desecration.

He climbed the 333 stairs, pausing to spit at each scripture-mosaic. Nerevar, ALMSIVI's champion, met Betrayal at the Fane's apex.

"I have been waiting for you," he said.

And Betrayal laughed. "You are God's dog."

And Nerevar bowed. "I am rightly judged."

Betrayal drew his sword, edge red-hot with regret. "Greet your negation."

Nerevar struck, but his blade could not cleave Betrayal, armoured in the burnt husks of wicked souls. Betrayal's laugher was bone-biting.

"I am more than you, servant of falsehood."

At these words, fire sprang up in Nerevar. He worshipped at the altar of truth, and Betrayal sought to mislead him. And Nerevar-named-Hortator, whose belly nurtured the mind-seed of Molag Bal and the Devil-Tiger, who'd kissed Chaos-as-Wisdom, raised his sword. It blazed a million space-born colours, and Betrayal did hiss, hiding his eyes.

"How came you by this secret?" Betrayal asked.

And Nerevar answered with a glimmering slash.

Betrayal's armour became as black vapour, his skin split. From the wound spilt bile so bitter it devoured matter.

And Betrayal laughed. "I am mother to hatred. My spawn shall breed in your bones."

Their swords kissed, and yet Nerevar was shaken. Betrayal's blood consumed his blade, and soon he would be weaponless.

"Your fear is pleasant," said Betrayal. "It perfumes you well."

And at this Nerevar paused. His fear sprang from death's nearness. But he, husband to destruction, knew fear to be a caul. It was religion's blunt dagger, putting out the eyes of truth. He remembered the lessons of Ayem, and strove to know God through terror.

"Put up your sword," said Betrayal. "You are not yet undone."

And Nerevar-named-Hortator cast down his blade. He pulled Betrayal into an embrace, pressing against the abyss-wound.

Betrayal writhed and cursed, titling Nerevar a fool and worse. And the blood washed over him, anointing his face, his chest, his thighs. Flesh bubbled, burst, sloughed off. The weeping redness was a crucible, burning free the dross of delusion. Nerevar's skin turned a truer gold, and he kissed Betrayal in thanks.

"You are mad," said Betrayal.

And they laughed together, voices blending into an oblivion hymn. Nerevar sucked nectar from Betrayal's mouth, and this holy ichor seeped through him, diluting his blood, dissolving his heart. He was hollowed, and yet filled. His innards crystalized, becoming eternal, perfect.

Nerevar released Betrayal, and his empty armour fell clattering to the floor.

And Ayem, who sees all, appeared beside Nerevar.

"You have attained a real body," she said.

And Nerevar became glass; the light-pulse of his heart grew bright as the sun.

There was a great rumbling then, and the High Fane's roof was torn off. Thus did Mehrunes Dagon, Lord of Razors, make himself known.

"You have read my legions," he said. "But that was merely the prelude. Now do I perform."

And Ayem held Kalabhaksa aloft. "I am the end."

"Not yet," said Mehrunes Dagon. "Your city I shall crush to dust. I shall dance it into rubble and ruin."

And Nerevar said, "You cannot accomplish such."

"I shape the world to my will, all must obey. I am law's fortress, which neither tide nor time can efface."

And Ayem bowed, acknowledging Mehrunes Dagon as King of the Temporal.

"But spirit outlasts flesh," she said. "And there do I wait."

Mehrunes Dagon's thunder-laughter shook the heavens. "Then watch as I send your children to meet you."

And he strode away, flattening palaces.

Nerevar said, "Mistress, this sacrilege cannot stand."

Ayem replied, "God's body is beyond mortification."

But Nerevar, who still possessed a grain of illusion, said, "I will stop him."

And Ayem said nothing.

Thus did Nerevar rush to confront Mehrunes Dagon. He discovered him eating the foundations of the Temple of False Thinking.

"I am ALMSIVI's champion!" he cried. "What is your rebuttal?"

And Dagon displayed his armaments, sinews slithering like snakes in oil. Nerevar was diminished before this magnificence, and his sword wavered, yet he held firm.

"You cannot conquer me, for I am conquest."

With this statement did the debate begin.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	31. Sermon 31

Sermon 31

Nerevar-named-Hortator delivered bladed thesis.

"I am only strong as I make myself."

Mehrunes Dagon deflected this argument, retorting with barbed antithesis.

"Your limit is under my domain, and I pronounce you feeble."

But Nerevar unravelled this rhetoric with a flurry of blows.

"Reality is mirrored by the individual, not the reverse."

And Mehrunes Dagon brandished sophistry's shield.

"I reject your critique."

Thus did synthesis collapse, Veloth tumbled about the debaters. Mehrunes Dagon mired Nerevar in tautology, dragging him down. And though Nerevar's sword-thrusts were pointed and incisive, Mehrunes Dagon had the weight of consensus behind him.

He crushed Nerevar's position. "I conclude this debate in favour of my House."

Nerevar struggled on, eliciting Dagon's laughter.

"You prolong the inevitable. Do as I say, and you shall not suffer."

But Nerevar would not relinquish his identity. Ayem's fire burnt in his heart, and it fuelled his defiance.

"Let me present my offer," said Dagon, bending to claim Nerevar's person.

He pinned him down with his upper arms, and with his others he spread Nerevar's steel-fleshed swell, revealing his hidden carnation. Dagon licked the petals, dewing them, and the flower unfurled.

"You shall not have me," said Nerevar.

And Dagon made of his tongue a spear, stirred it within Nerevar. The Hortator's moan-shaken body went limp. He fumbled for his own spear, gripping it in fingers taught with pain-pleasure.

Dagon laughed. "You hold your spear stiff even now, at your undoing."

And Dagon reached around, engulfing Nerevar's spear-hand in his own.

"There is happiness in slavery," Dagon said. So saying, he took Nerevar's spear, running his fingers down its shaft, coaxing strange and subtle movements from it.

And Nerevar did gasp at this affront to his person. "I am stronger than my spear."

The Lord of Razors knelt then, placing his spear between Nerevar. He stroked it back and forth in carnal promise.

"Do you submit to the crescent moon, and the single star, bleeding through the blackness?"

And Nerevar's reply was a grit-muted moan.

But as Mehrunes Dagon prepared to penetrate his Second Aperture, Nerevar glimpsed an image of Ayem. She waited on the horizon, flame-hazed and hungry.

And Nerevar's marrow became churning possibility.

He folded space, folded it again. Shaped by the reversal, he swallowed Dagon's spear. The Lord of Razors howled his surprise, and Nerevar silenced him by driving his own spear into his mouth. For this was a secret posture he'd learnt from the King of Rape. It was dominance's cure, offering power to neither, and Nerevar used it now on Dagon. (This posture was later named the Divine Union of Tiger and Wolf.)

In this sacred joining were Nerevar and Mehrunes Dagon made one. The Hortator tasted destruction's heartbeat, savoured the flavour of time. For his part, Dagon raged, yet Nerevar's starving ego provided poor purchase, and he could not get his talons into the thin flesh.

At the hilt of Dagon's spear, Nerevar discovered a secret, which he bit off.

This violation roused the Lord of Razors. With new-grown strength he cast Nerevar away.

"You think to tame me?" he said. "But I am the fire of change!"

And thus did Nerevar come to know Dagon as but an orphaned fragment of Ayem.

The Hortator raised his spear, shaped by the Devil-Tiger into a thing of beauty. Dagon readied his own weapon.

And Nerevar charged. Dagon tried to turn his spear aside, but it slipped between the cracks of reality, and Dagon could not touch it.

Nerevar struck out, laying Dagon low. The Lord of Razors revealed himself, and Nerevar fell upon him. He aligned his spear, smooth and sleek, thrusting low.

And Dagon did howl as Nerevar drove his spear into his Second Aperture, down to the hilt. He writhed upon it, panting and groaning. Nerevar did not relent; he joined to Dagon as he would Ayem, finding revelation in the mingling of their breath. Sweat dripped from his forehead, Dagon lapped up the golden beads, like embers on his tongue.

Nerevar's countenance was grim, teeth tight and grinding, eyes like suns, nostrils flared and steaming. He took Dagon like a wolf takes his prey, violent, desperate, and above all hungry.

Dagon clung to him, drawing him deeper, leeching warmth from Nerevar's fire. The Hortator's thrusts grew arrhythmic, and he was emptied of heat. It streamed into Mehrunes Dagon, like liquid light. Nerevar withdrew, utterly spent, his spear low.

And Dagon stood, laughing. He touched the wound Nerevar had made, wet with his passing.

"I am forged in such flames," he said, licking damp fingers.

And though his limbs were lead-filled, Nerevar prepared for a second assault.

Seeing this, Dagon said, "Slick your spear with blood and thrust against my husk, little saint. You only stoke my urge."

Mehrunes Dagon pounced upon Nerevar in a whirl of limbs. Broken, he cried out to his Mother for succour.

Then did Ayem come in glory, arrayed in starlight and splendour. She held Kalabhaksa aloft, hurled it at Dagon.

"Why do you disturb me?" he said.

And Ayem threw Kalabhaksa again, and again, till it was unto a gadfly. Mehrunes Dagon stamped his hooves in rage.

"Cease this! I am in the midst of a feast!"

Nerevar righted himself and said, "My Mother is eternal. Though you rule the world, she will be the thorn of entropy in your side."

And the Lord of Razors did howl.

"I will unmake you!"

And Ayem said, "I am already formless."

But Dagon was deaf to this. He spread his arms wide, crawling with chaos. His voice was primal urge given shape and sound.

"DAGON ALTADOON CHIM GHARTOK."

And this was Dagon's secret name, which has the power to define reality. Nerevar looked upon Dagon's infinity, and was enlightened. In the blazing climax of love-agony he'd been granted an insight, and this was Wisdom-named-Chaos' gift, the only gift.

Nerevar stretched out his hand, and plucked the third syllable of Dagon's name free.

"This I make mine," he said.

And Dagon was undone, for he had lost his centre. Without it, he could not hold, and his essence fled his bones, returning to oblivion, roaring his rage.

And Nerevar wiped the Universe's gore from his face, threw back his head and laughed.

Ayem appeared beside him, placed a jewel on his forehead.

"Let this be your eye."

And Dagon's bones collapsed into the proof of Ayem's greatness. She looked at Veloth, rendered to ash and said:

"Let me demonstrate my love, for you who require such."

And she laid out Dagon's god-bones, heavy with potential, and made of them a foundation.

Then did Seht manifest as a rain of ruby blossoms.

"To my sister's city, I offer a beginning."

Vivec came next, borne on a wave of laughter.

"To my sister's city, I offer irrepressible action."

And Nerevar bowed before Ayem, saying:

"And to my Mother's city, I offer myself, and all who walk like me."

Ayem held Kalabhaksa aloft then, assuming the first stance of destruction's dance. And all about her flowed streets, temples, palaces. And Ayem said:

"Come, come, whoever you are. Wanderer, nomad, lover of leaving. Let this city be your centre."

Thus was founded the city of Ayem-Almalexia in the days of Resdaynia.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	32. Sermon 32

Sermon 32

The Scripture of the City:

"Sometimes cities are stone, sometimes they are love. Enter into me, the ever-unfolding lotus, dream-dewed and radiant. Thought-made streets rush outwards to greet you. Here, stand upon my back. Bridges and roads are female for the weight they bear, the burden. Such am I, prostrate upon my bed, awaiting the bridegroom's arrival. My pennants snap, a prayer, a cliché, speak no words in this moment of unbecoming.

"Look into my pools, fountains, lakes. Watch the dance of light-reeds, swaying upon marble walls and mosaics. Beneath the white-winged rush of heron-clouds, slip off your garments. Do not hide your nakedness from me. The only thing I lack is shame. And even this you may find, down, down, in depth-lost reliquaries carved with forgotten commandments. Step into my cool embrace. I swallow you like a droplet, providing the essence from which all life stems. Trail fingers upon my rippling surface, wrinkling like wisdom-marked skin. Drink deep of me, and never be sated.

"Dry yourself now, 'neath my sun, its heat my embrace. I kiss your diamond-dappled chest, limbs wet with my passing. Let me unwind your hair, pull it taught, pluck melodies from it. Do not wince, all true art springs from sorrow and suffering. There now, let me pick up that tear. I set it high, so all may see proof of my words. Wrap these robes about you, spun of lilies and gold. Walk me, a spiral. And be joyful as you go, for this is a monument to man's tolerance.

"Roam among the markets, peek under red awnings, yellow, blue. Thrust your hands into mountains of spice, inhale their burn. Turn fruit in your fingers, devour its gleam. Beside you walk the multitude, and I. See them cross my face, back, forth, mapping my mind's passages. And with them I am made immortal, their footprints lingering long after. Their life-drive is the dance of light upon my neurones.

"See them stride, heads low, cloaks pulled up. The soul is purified in anonymity. Only alone can we truly know ourselves. They huddle in hovels and tenements, temples and palaces. But I am near, the walls of the mind are paper thin, and my hands press against them, straining to break free.

"Look now at liberty. This is the promise of cities. See the million tragedies played out, the hope, regret, fear and longing. Look at solipsism, the individual mass dancing their spirals. In this neural-numbness am I too found, in the grey haze masking heaven.

"Breathe deeply of the heaving throng, undulations like a heart, like a great chest in the throes of life. This is the tempest-tossed sea of teeth-grit civility. It shimmers in the afterimage, mirage-mantled, blessing transactions and the rattling skeletons of hospitality. It is frustration you feel, throbbing 'neath flagstones and mud. And it breaks forth like a boil, bursts. The pus is a wave which sweeps away platitudes. Look at them shivering, the dispossessed. They are the scapegoat, sacrificed on misdirection's altar. Do not seek to save them. Man will ever find an excuse, even if he must turn on himself.

"Continue your progress. Leap the threshold between profane and sacred. Here rise my temples, gem-faceted, dreaming. Prayer-gates yawn open, yonic, sweet with the nectar of divine ecstasy. Stay for a spell, wash yourself in incense. Raise your arms as I smear on the ointment. Yes, let yourself shine. Your body is my sacristy, containing a universe of its own. Look at the bright-eyed neophytes, eager for enlightenment. All are made one in God, yet they hope She speaks to them alone. We can laugh at this delusion, you and I. Here, have this pomegranate. Bite fully, let the juice stain your lips, I shall kiss them clean. Leave a shadow of yourself as offering then let us walk on, there is time enough for God in eternity.

"Ah! Marvel at the blue-tiled mansions, sapphires in the sun. Do you wish for such an abode? I give one to you. Here, crane your neck to glimpse it all. Many-arched and marvellous, a spread-legged courtesan crying, 'Take me, take me, oh just take me'! Yes, here you may spend yourself, in the shaded garden, under the fronds of ever-green trees. But linger not over-long! This wealth will tame you, sate you. The wolf does not gild his den. It is musk-ridden and destitute. That is a hall worthy of feasts. In the palace dwell the eunuchs of castrated thought. Do not relinquish the stones of your self-hood so easily.

"Cover your eyes, that is enough luxury. Roam instead along the rim. The slums, rising like a rash. Sewer-watered vagrants spring up, smelling coin. No, look till your eyes ache. Is this a failure? Am I responsible for this pain? Do not answer, beloved, words are futile devices. This is the realm of the senses, the effluence of bodies, their groaning tendons, their ragged breath. What can I offer here? A promise. Ever-echoing love, it is writ upon my city, the scripture trailing round and round, a mortar-mantra, all-knowledge's foundation.

"And if you, sweet one, could roll 'round me, moon-bourn, what would you see? My city-body laid out, rapturous, an architectural orgy. Look at the High Fane, a joy-gaping mouth. The leaf-furred gardens and parks, moist, fecund, soil soft and yielding. Penetrate me with your eyes, run them over my domed palaces, gold-skinned, gleaming. Count my garlanded arcades, backs bending over and over, making way for you, colonnades wet and warm. Breathe my perfume, an all-pervading petricor, feathering the air. Your fingers long to encompass me, catalogue the curves and contours of my roads, leading inwards, to my centre, from where springs life everlasting.

"I will flower forever. A chaste whore, paid for in a thousand foreign coins. Ambassadors will learn my language; translate me into barbarous speech, into poetry. The red-crowned king will kneel before me, mad for my touch, my favour. The eight false-gods of the west shall send calamity against my temples, and I shall gather up this storm and make of it rain which will fall eternal. Dance in it, sweet children. Dance, and dance and dance till you fall down, dead, and I take you, at last, into my womb."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	33. Sermon 33

Sermon 33

For this was the dusk of Resdaynia, when Chimer and Dwemer lived beneath the wise and benevolent rule of ALMSIVI, and Her champion, the Hortator.

Jubilation! Oh jubilation! The Lord of Razors was struck down, and from his husk was made a home for all Vvanderfall! ALMSIVI decreed 66 days of joy, and the corners of the land came together in love and adoration.

There was a procession upon Dagon's Spine. Musicians played the seven-stringed drone-gourd, banged bell-strung drums. Beautiful boys danced in imitation of thousand-armed ALMSIVI, and sweet-voiced girls chanted mantras to Her glory.

First came Seht, in the form of 33 bronze wheels, fire-eyed, rotating within each other. He was held aloft by his war-servitors, newly-polished, pearl-enamelled. Their footfalls struck sparks, and the air turned to water around them.

Then came Vivec, rainbow-painted, smiling at all. He was carried on a thought-born palanquin of daedra bone. He had fed the dust of his Buyount Armigers to war orphans, and they had become his new honour guard. They praised Vivec's beauty, and their song summoned a storm.

Last came Ayem, driving an emerald-spoked chariot, Nerevar, her student, beside her. Nerevar had selected from the pious 999 good men, resurrecting the Golden Legion. They marched behind Ayem and Nerevar, and their hymns were an earthquake.

ALMSIVI arrived at the plaza where heretics were corrected, commencing the festivities.

Among the people of Almalexia did Seht send out his servitors. They bowed before the poorest, collapsing into heaps of broken gold, and there was much rejoicing. Thus did the denizens of Ayem's city become the richest in the world.

Then Vivec danced among the people, telling pointless jokes which grew longer with each telling. Some thought the end was a spear, others a chalice. Vivec said everyone was correct, and there was much rejoicing. Thus did the denizens of Ayem's city become the happiest in the world.

Last, Ayem raised a pillar, setting Kalabhaksa upon it. The Holy Generation leapt through it, shining with gladsome light. The people did gasp at this spectacle, revealing the death of limitation. And there was much rejoicing. Thus did the denizens of Ayem's city become the most faithful in the world.

Nerevar declared a contest of skill next. He cast off his garments, calling his Legion to a wrestling match. They came at him, but none could claim the advantage. The Hortator was a golden-bodied river, muscles ebbing and flowing, sinews streaming. He cast down opponent after opponent, and they touched his spear in submission. This mating of sweat-stained limbs was terrible to behold in its unmasked carnality. As the 999th challenger knelt, kissing Nerevar's lotus feet, a great cry went up from the assembled Chimer, for Nerevar was ALMSIVI's champion in truth.

But Nerevar, whose Mother is Mercy, pitied his humbled Legion. Even while he panted out his exertions, servant-boys scraping him down, adoring his sculpted-strength, he vowed to please them.

Thus did he go to each of his sword-brothers and take hold of their spears. Then he placed their fingers around his own, so they might know the difference. His strokes were the back-forth of a master, and his students mirrored his motions. Soon their necks and arms were tension-veined, teeth grit in distraction. Their heaven-raised weapons were slick in their grasps. And sunlight touched spear tips, exploded, scattered across faces and chests.

Nerevar went thus to his men, teaching them his secret arts. In steam-wreathed baths, desolate training-grounds, in night-dimmed barracks did he lead his students in spear-shaping. This is how the Golden Legion became perfect in their combat technique.

But even as Almalexia knew many-coloured delights, others plotted bitterness. In the hidden places of the Dwemer, the First Under-Inventor tugged on his braided beard, gleeful. "Thus is god thrown down so man might become God." And he marked his victory upon the Theory-Rack; his academic opponents slit their throats in failure.

For the First Under-Inventor had witnessed the fall of Mehrunes Dagon, and took it as a sign. If the Lord of Razors was undone through doctrine, then the Under-Inventor would craft a better paradox.

And there it rose, at the centre. The Brass God, the New Deity. It was a living star, breathing nightmares, bleeding night. Ringing it were Dwemer, thousands of them, crying out with one throat the eternal resonance, the solid syllable from which existence sprang.

This was life, this was love. The First Under-Inventor danced and clapped his hands. He had his oil-blooded servitors play music upon their ribs. Thus going, he went to the Temple of Pure Reason, kissed the transcendent tools on the High Altar.

"With these instruments of alteration," he said. "I shall build our metamorphosis, and lead my people from reality's bondage."

So saying he struck the tools together, and their clarion cry was so pure all Dwemer could hear it, for they loved such things. They came to the hidden place to worship at the feet of the Brass God, the Ark of their unmaking.

Thus did the Dwemer reject ALMSIVI, bowing to the five directions, sealing their fate.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	34. Sermon 34

Sermon 34

On the 65th day of Almalexia's joy, the Void Ghost came, dressed as a virgin bride.

She went to bow before Ayem, who said, "Do you come seeking blessing?"

And the virgin bride said, "I bring strife."

Ayem said, "Ancient One, why do you seek to cripple joy with misfortune?"

And the virgin bride smiled. "I am chaos in motion, your truest disciple. The eternal moment offends my eyes."

And Ayem bowed, for this was truth.

The virgin bride threw off her disguise, becoming a roiling mass of unborn children.

"Go to the star-wounded east," it said with a million wet mouths. "Go and present your case."

The Void Ghost folded time about itself, vanishing into history.

Ayem summoned the Hortator.

"We must go on a journey together."

And Nerevar obeyed.

He followed Ayem to her emerald-spoked chariot, she took up the reins. Wind-fast they raced towards Red Mountain.

They arrived beneath night's shade, cresting a rise. Below them spread a valley, crowned by the Sharmat's seat.

And great was the light before them. A thousand, thousand campfires, shaped like a spiral. And there, in the centre, rose the Brass God. It bent space to make room for its presence, weighing heavily on reality.

Nerevar quailed at its immensity. One moment it was tower-tall, next its head vanished in the clouds, then it became so vast it couldn't be seen at all.

Shielding his bleeding eyes, Nerevar cried, "Mistress, what is this abomination?"

"It is a challenge."

And Nerevar said, "But how can we meet it! All the swords of the Golden Legion will be as grass to it, their spears will be straw."

And Ayem smiled, saying nothing.

"Mistress, the Dwemer alone are a great host, but their Walking Star contains a thousand armies in its smallest finger. How shall we stand against it, so soon after Dagon's culling?"

And Ayem smiled, saying nothing.

"Mistress, I do not fear death, for it is merely a passage, but I weep for my people. They are ignorant, and will curse your name."

And Ayem smiled, saying nothing.

"Mistress, I beseech you, show me comfort."

And Ayem said, "I shall show you everything."

Thus Nerevar's third eye unfurled, and he saw:

The mouth of time did open wide,

In radiance, wonder, dread.

And a million stars hid inside,

The destiny of the dead.

Lotus petals ever-unfolding,

Countless lights beholding,

Bearing witness to the unmaking,

Of wisdom for the taking.

Oh Glorious One, turn from me,

Let Thy sun-scorch radiance dim.

For Thy cosmic eyes are all I see,

And Thy gaze is last-breath grim.

And upon Her brow rest the moons,

Their glow limning the wind-swept dunes,

Of my petty, squirming soul.

And extinction is its goal.

Wonder stems from Thy crater-lips,

Sing a sunburst into being.

And Thy shadow is a great eclipse,

Sparking faith in its seeing.

Supreme Deity, I am undone,

By the blinding of Thy sun.

Thy presence's galaxy-swirl,

Is a nimbus of liquid pearl.

Lord of Light, I worship Thee,

Drowning in your abyssal pool.

Treasure-palace of great mystery,

Reveal your hidden heart-jewel.

Thy flame-haloed glory becomes,

A thousand splendid suns,

Bursting all as one,

Thus was time begun.

Thy limbs are measured in mountains,

Circumscribed by infinity's sea.

And from Thee, nameless colour fountains,

To water the ever-living Tree.

In Thee swim all forms, sacred, profane,

And by Thy will alone do Thee sustain,

Our pulsing veins, our very motion,

From a mote of dust to the deepest ocean.

Star-sprinkled void place,

To Thee all blood-rivers flow,

And even god-emperors must face,

Thy gnashing, hungry teeth of woe.

With flaming maw do Thee devour,

Every day, and every hour.

Time itself is meat to Thee,

And womb-wet souls you set free.

Invisible King, consume Thy creation,

Saint, and daedra, lords and nations.

For all matter is but Thy emanation,

Falling stars are Thy libations.

Thus I bow in unceasing prayer,

To Thy infinite-armed formless form.

Thee, whose breath is my air,

And whose sighs are a rising storm.

At this manifestation Nerevar-named-Hortator covered his third eye, crying:

"Have mercy on my limits! Take up again the cloak of my charioteer! This omni-shape is too terrible for mortals to behold. I ask for your mercy, Mother!"

And Ayem quenched the inferno of her third eye, kissing Nerevar on his jewelled brow.

"Be not afraid Nerevar. I showed you but the side of my face, and only a glimpse. I do this to remind you. The people of Veloth will die, today or tomorrow, it matters not. I am the All-Slayer, and countless are my victims. The Dwemer, in their arrogance, think to best me. Fools! Though it take half an eternity, they will fall into my embrace and know annihilation. This is entropy's promise; this is my covenant, forever and ever."

And Nerevar bowed before Ayem the Destroyer, quaking.

"Forgive me, Mother, for my grain of doubt."

And Ayem said, "There is nothing to forgive. Think you capable of angering God? Prideful man! She is not roused by mortal pettiness; She is the Unmoved Mover, at the centre of everything."

With this sign did Nerevar go out to conquer.

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	35. Sermon 35

Sermon 35

The shining host of ALMSIVI gathered about the valley where the Dwemer camped, in the red light of dawn. There stood the Golden Legion, spears new polished, swords bright and thirsty. There stood the Buoyant Armigers, dancing on blade-points, ready to uncoil. There stood the war-servitors, painted in the promise of blood.

And Ayem raised Kalabhaksa as a standard, there upon her chariot, Nerevar-named-Hortator beside her. Vivec wheeled amongst the faithful, Muatra a shard of sun, inspiring all who looked upon it. Seht raged overhead, in the form of an iron cloud, heavy with razor-rain.

And the First Under-Inventor looked through his refracting-lens, laughing. "They are waves, and the Brass God is a steel mountain. How can they sunder the idol made real through faith?"

And Nerevar-named-Hortator took up his ebony-banded warhorn, sounding the first sally. Ten thousand arrows hissed, seeking Dwemer hearts, but the Brass God made of its mind a shield, and the arrows broke upon it.

And Nerevar-named-Hortator took up his ebony-banded warhorn, sounding the second sally. The Golden Legion charged, Nerevar's sigil their battlecry. But the Brass God turned their swords to water, limped their spears, and the Legion was scattered.

And Nerevar-named-Hortator took up his ebony-banded warhorn, sounding the third sally. The Buoyant Armigers lunged, bone-whistling, a white whirlwind. But the Brass God turned their armour to glass, shattered it, and they were pierced in every way.

The First Under-Inventor laughed, hiked up his robes and danced. He sent forth the first retort.

Walking ballistae flung man-long shafts at ALMSIVI. Vivec made of Muatra a greater length, shaming the ballistae's missiles. They burnt with embarrassment, and fell, scorched, back to earth.

The First Under-Inventor blew out his cheeks and stamped his feet. He sent forth the second retort.

Golden atronachs advanced, armed with arrows which could strike their target from a great distance. They left smoke-trails in the sky as they screamed flaming death.

And Seht unleashed his torrent upon them, killing their fires. Without heat, the atronachs grew still, their untended arrows burst into dull embers.

The First Under-Inventor ground his teeth, cursed in a dozen tongues. He sent forth the third retort.

They were a host of Dwemer in shell-armour, bearing dragon-rods which spat sparks and thunder. Then did the war-servitors stir, their march a drumbeat. The Dwemer turned their weapons upon them, but their artifice could not pierce the servitors' Seht-blessed skin. Falling upon the Dwemer, the war-servitors dissembled them, silencing their sorcery.

And the First Under-Inventor did tear at his hair in dismay, for now nothing remained but the Brass God.

"This is good," he said. "For the Brass God is everything."

And he struck his transcendent tools together, bade the Brass God pick him up. The New Deity did so, placing the Under Inventor in its mouth, where he tugged at its mind-stems.

"Towards the Tower!" he cried, and the Brass God obeyed, sweeping the servitors into scrap.

At its approach, the Sharmat appeared on the shores of Red Mountain.

"I see at last your people have turned from you, Mother of Mercy. Thus do I reward their inconstancy."

And the Sharmat bore his belly, pregnant with malady. He clawed himself open, birthing a Blight which swept over the land, turning it red.

The soul-sickness gnawed at the Brass God, and he swatted it away, the blow forming the inner sea. Offended, the Blight moved on to more grateful victims.

"Mistress," said Nerevar, fear-shaken. "If the abomination reaches the Tower it will crown itself king!"

And Ayem laughed. "Sweet disciple, all is under my will alone. Do you still doubt?"

And Nerevar-named-Hortator smiled. "I give my body to the hungry wolves."

Then did Ayem make a mudra, blessing Nerevar. "Witness now, your God."

And Ayem raised Kalabhaksa. Vivec entered into it, Seht entered into it, and Ayem drove the chakram into her forehead.

Thus did she become ALMSIVI, that which is, was, and ever will be.

The Brass God came upon the Mouth of Hell, blasting it open with its fire-gaze. The Sharmat stepped aside, bowing and smiling. The Under-Inventor urged his vessel on, till it came to the hidden diamond at the Universe's heart.

He reached for it with the Brass God's hands.

Then did ALMSIVI come, the all in all.

"WHAT SEEK THEE?" She said.

"Apotheosis," said the Under-Inventor.

"I AM THE GATE OF GOD."

And the Under Inventor laughed. "Here there is no division. I am You, as You are Me. I will make my god with my own hands."

"HOW COME YOU BY THIS?"

"I stand at the centre, where all is possibility."

"YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN HERE."

And the Under-Inventor was struck dumb.

"YOU HAVE NEVER BEEN ANYWHERE BUT HERE, IN THE CHAMBER OF ALL MYSTERIES."

And the Under-Inventor was enlightened.

"From here did my soul spring, and here does it rest. My ego is dead, for it was no more than my need to know myself. Now, I know nothing, thus, I am nothing."

So saying he was dispersed, consumed by truth, unmade.

Bereft of its guiding star, the Brass God grew still, inert, a monument to the folly of those who sought heaven through violence.

And the Sharmat, coming upon this said, "I shall treasure it. And perhaps, in time, it shall walk again."

And ALMSIVI pronounced this wise.

And She returned to Nerevar's side, who knelt, forlorn, beside the truth-struck tower. ALMSIVI disentangled Herself, becoming the approachable aspects.

And Nerevar said, "I am ready to begin my journey."

He stood then, looking towards the Mouth of Hell.

And Ayem said, "A Blight ravages the land, darkening the countenances of your people. Will you not save them?"

And Nerevar said, "I leave the limits of this mystery to my children. May it make them wise."

And Seht said, bowing, "I give you the right of your own creation."

And Vivec said, bowing, "I give you the promise of love. Though I spurn you now, it shall make our inevitable union sweeter."

And Ayem said, bowing, "I give one final lesson, to speed your steps."

The ending of the words is ALMSIVI.


	36. Sermon 36

Sermon 36

The Scripture of Love:

"Love is named by many the supreme joy. The lion-men of the desert claim it keeps the moons aloft. The southern sea-elves say it allows one to breathe underwater. Man and mer alike cling to each other in rapturous ecstasy, crying with scream-strained voice, 'God is love, God is love, God is love!'

"But is this truth? If God is equilibrium, does hate unseat Her majesty? Great are hate's powers and principalities. They command the legions of envy, spite, bitterness. Their domains are pogroms, genocides, holocausts. Where is love here? Can love turn aside a blade, stop an arrow in flight? No, it cannot, love is no armour to the weak. It is not warmth to the cold, nor food to the hungry. The dreaming poets say love is everything, but cast these poets, ragged and ruined, into the gutters, and let us see if love provides.

"Yes love, sublime reality, binding us all in its matrix of validation. Love is cruel. It leads us to longing, drives us mad in waiting. Love we say, will come when it shall come. Yet we sigh at each new sunset absent its presence. We toss and turn in lonely beds, clinging to empty air where love should be. We rub our enflamed flesh, coax forth tears, yet love does not wipe them away. And we sing along to the bards who hold love supreme. Ah love! The face of God! The only truth. Yes, we repeat the lines, every pious verse, every platitude. We say it over and over, till satisfaction comes. God is love, God is love, God is love.

"We have made love our god. There is no difference between the divine and the thought-feelings washing over us, heating us, consuming us. You think this holy? It is born of our minds, from the consensus-illusion which bids us behave as others do. Marry, whelp, live, die. An unimaginative formula, and a cowardly one. It takes a slow-kindled courage to resist the allure of easy answers, of the banal and familiar. I spit on love, and those who exult it, for their words are shades, and the darkness of mind-death.

"What am I then? I am self-acceptance. This is greater than love, and it is trans-love, beyond mere labels. It is revealed in the Septagrammaton, ALMSIVI, the name of God near as man can pronounce it. And you are God, all of you. You think evil born of hate? No, it stems from love, from the desire to imprint one's self on reality. This is Molag Bal's fate, who rapes the world, and yet is never sated. This is the tragic history of the Lord of Razors. He rises, again and again, to destroy the thing which rejects him. He will always fail, yet he never relents. Love drives him to this. The Void Ghost seeks to mislead out of love for chaos, and yet those it touches know only loathing. The Pariah, bereft, he is not even a whisper in this text, yet his love is so great, he consumed his own children, so they could be part of him forever. This is the House of Troubles. Do not let your nature be your fate. Do not kill out of love. Love defines you, love limits you. Be formless, and ever-changing, shed your skin, again and again, till you are a protean mass of limbs and eyes and instruments of pleasure. Let none scrawl your name on your soul, let none tell you what you are. This is true love, and this will save you.

"Look to me for guidance, then turn back, upon yourself, and dance the spiral. I am like you, in eternal mutation, donning one mask, then another, laughing at those who think love constant. I am male and female, slave and master, man and mer. And this concubine-turned-queen whom some name Almalexia, she is me. Just as Vehk is me, and Seht, and you. My womb is the wellspring of possibility, a refracted dream old as eternity. My spear is wolf-hungry, tiger-hot, seeking heads to stab, and third eyes to open. This is my gift: Yourself.

"Know pain, know torment. Swim through ice-floes of daggers, seas of acid. Crawl through deserts of jagged hope, drown in mirages of regret. And there will I be, at revelation's knifepoint, when all agony becomes searing clarity. Blind you shall be, and brighter than the moons. And fearless too. Yes, for I am the insurer. No suffering is without value, no death meaningless. So long as I stand, in the centre, saying: You are all made equal in my love. So shall you never fear subjectivity's scythe, winnowing faith.

"Remember this, as you dance to the beat of the Doom Drum, moving with me, moving within me, self without end."

And Nerevar said nothing, for these words were enough. He walked towards the Tower, into the Sharmat's waiting arms, and what he found there he alone can say.

Then did ALMSIVI turn away, towards the middle world, and perfection.

The beginning of the words is ALMSIVI. I give this to you as Ayem, and know I am with you, unto the end.


End file.
